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

hand.”
    “Sure.” Covenant readied the
krill
. As much as he could, he ignored Lord Foul’s fierce shape, concentrated on Roger. “Try it. I’m not going to surrender again. And I am done with restraint.”
    The Despiser laughed like grinding stones. “Yet you have not forgotten folly. That pleases me.” His eyes and Roger’s bit at the air. “I find delight in your misbelief that you are potent to oppose me.
    “Have you forgotten, Timewarden? Does mortal recall fail within you even now? I have assured you that you are mine. You have been my servant always, though you have twice refused submission. Each and all of your efforts to thwart me have conduced to my present triumph. Because you have dared to oppose me, I will be made free.”
    Covenant shook his head. “Maybe
you’re
the one who’s forgotten. We’ve talked about this before. It goes both ways. If I’m yours, you’re also mine. Maybe I’ve always been yours, but I made you mine when I let you kill me.
    “And apparently you’ve forgotten Linden. You tried to tell her the same thing. According to you, everything she does guarantees your escape. But she’s still here. She’s still doing things you didn’t expect and couldn’t imagine. She may even find a way to keep you here when reality falls apart.”
    The Despiser swelled. He appeared to gather vehemence. But Covenant did not flinch.
    “And haven’t you forgotten Jeremiah? Don’t you need him? Isn’t he essential to your
deeper purpose
? How can you even hope to use him when he has the Staff of Law?”
    Lord Foul’s laughter was savage. It felt unanswerable.
    “Indeed, the boy holds the Staff of Law. But my servant
moksha
has taken possession of him. Even now, he awaits my will. Through him, Law itself promotes my intent.”
    Oh, hell! In spite of his fire, Covenant faltered.
Moksha
had Jeremiah? The walls of the chamber seemed to contract around him. Futures for which he had prayed faded like hallucinations. He had gambled on the boy: gambled and lost.
    How would Linden bear it when she learned that her son served the Despiser?
    At that moment, Roger struck. His halfhand hurled a bolt of incineration at his father.
    Reflexively Covenant caught the blast with Loric’s
krill
; blocked it with the gem’s radiance and an outpouring of wild magic. Argent against laval crimson, flame against the savagery of molten stone, he fought to save himself.
    But he hardly knew what he was doing. He lost track of Branl. The dagger bucked in his grasp: Roger’s force tried to tear it from his numb fingers. The coruscation of powers blinded him. Briefly Kiril Threndor inverted itself. He depended from the floor, felt himself falling toward the ceiling. Then the whole chamber reeled, giddy as vertigo.
    He clung to the
krill
instinctively, sent his heart’s need like lightning through the blade’s cut jewel; floundered to survive.
    His son’s might appalled him. Roger was stronger now. The severing of his human hand from Kastenessen had not weakened him. Nor had Kastenessen’s passing into the fane of the
Elohim
. Roger’s given fist retained the ravaging force of the
skurj
. And Lord Foul stood behind him or within him, supporting him.
    Soon the
krill
would start to melt. It had to. Nothing mortal-made could endure Roger’s virulence, or Covenant’s wild response.
    Upright beyond the ceiling and the stalactites, the breaking gutrock, Lord Foul watched. His eyes gnashed approval.
    Blasts like magma knocked Covenant’s weapon from side to side. Feral heat chewed into his hands, gnawed at his arms. And his dead nerves betrayed him. They spared him from the worst of the pain, but they also weakened his grip. The hilt twisted. The skin of his fingers seemed slick as spilth. He could not hold.
    He had to hold. The moment of his last crisis was upon him. Catastrophes burned in the bones of his forehead. Everything that he required of himself while life remained in his body depended on his ability to grip and hold.
    Somehow he withstood Roger’s assault. He had more than the
krill
: he had wild magic. In some sense, he
was
white gold. The power possible for him was limited only by his humanity, his flesh and sinew and passion. Loric’s dagger was not melting. Even Covenant’s hands were not. They were preserved by the theurgies that saved and damned; by the contradiction of renewal and ruin that formed the keystone of the Arch of Time. As long as he did not let go—
    But he could not do