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

cast argent through the diseased chiaroscuro of rocklight. Bright killing gathered like a blade in the scar on his forehead.
    Berek had warned Linden. He had warned Covenant. But he had said nothing about the means by which Lord Foul might gain freedom.
    “What’s the matter, Dad?” Roger glared as though his whole being had been consumed by scorn; as though he had been torn apart and put back together wrong. Denied anguish contorted his visage. At every moment, he looked more like a maimed thing, twisted beyond recognition. His right hand was sick lava, fuming and rotten. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”
    His plight demanded pity. For Covenant, pity was rage.
    A step ahead of Covenant, Branl regarded the figure on the dais. He held Longwrath’s flamberge negligently, as if he had no further use for it. “Ur-Lord,” he remarked as though he had been studying a particularly uninteresting icon, “I now comprehend why I was unable to discern the presence of Corruption. His aura was both blurred by Kastenessen’s
skurj
-born theurgy and disguised by his human vassal. Here his evil is plain. Corruption has taken your son, or your son has given himself. We must oppose both or neither. We cannot harm the spirit while the flesh shields it.”
    Hell and blood. Covenant had no answer for the Humbled. He had none for Roger. Wreathed in flame, he tightened his grip on the
krill
and started forward. Fissures marred the floor in front of him like the outcome of his anger; but he ignored them. Dizzying reflections and stalactites and tortured slabs of granite meant nothing to him. With every stride, he raised Loric’s dagger higher. The radiance of its gem filled his voice.
    “Let him go,” he snarled at the Despiser. “This is between you and me.
Leave him out of it
.”
    “Dad!” Roger feigned surprise. He feigned dismay. “You still don’t get it.” He lifted his inhuman hand to match the
krill
. A brimstone stench covered the reek of attar. The redder heat of magma daunted the rocklight. “None of this would have happened if you and that damn woman hadn’t interfered. All I wanted was the
croyel
—the
croyel
and Jeremiah—but you wouldn’t let me have them. If you had stayed out of my way, I wouldn’t be here.
    “This is
your
doing, Dad. It’s the only choice I had left.”
    “I don’t care,” Covenant retorted. “You did this to yourself. Nobody forced you. All you had to do was take pity on your mother,” on poor, deranged Joan, who had no defense, “and none of this would have happened.”
    “Really?” drawled Roger. His grimace mimicked a sneer. “You actually think that? You should care. I’ll tell you why. Since you seem oblivious to what’s been going on, I’ll explain it.
    “My
mother
”—he spat the word—“was useless. She couldn’t help me. She was just a distraction to keep you away from me. The
croyel
and Jeremiah were my way out. While I had them, I didn’t have to
serve
anybody.
I
didn’t have to care. But you took that away, you and that damn woman. You slammed the door on me,
Dad
. This is what I have left.
    “I’m not going to die no matter what you do, and do you know why?” Pressures within Roger clawed terrible shapes across his face. Lurid fires filled his eyes. Threats dunted from his halfhand. “Lord Foul is going to take me with him. That’s the deal. I gave myself to him, and he’s going to give me eternity. We’re just waiting until the Arch crumbles enough to let us out. Then we’ll be gone. It’ll be like you and this whole disgusting place never existed.
    “I’m letting him do what he wants because
he’s going to save me
!”
    Halfway to the flawless dais, Covenant halted; froze on the verge of howling his fury. The pain in Roger’s voice stopped him. He could almost hear the hollowness of his son’s soul.
    Branl was right. Of course he was. Covenant could not strike at Lord Foul without hitting Roger first. He would have to kill his son in order to hurt the Despiser—and he had already killed his son’s mother.
    He needed a better answer. Somehow he had to set anger aside, swallow horror. Roger’s sarcasm and arrogance masked the truth. The young man was appalled by what he had done to himself.
    “No,” Covenant snapped, wrestling for composure. “He won’t take you with him. Whatever he offered you won’t be what you think it is.” He had cloaked himself in fire and outrage as if they were a shield, but he could shrug them off