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

punch, he crushed Roger to wet pulp. But he did not leave the dais. Did not slip past the restrictions of time.
    Roger—
    Now Covenant heard Stave yelling, “The Chosen-son has freed himself!”
    At last. Now or never.
    Covenant was battered and deadened, too weak to support his own weight, broken in ways which he was too fraught to name. But he was still a white gold wielder, a by God
rightful
white gold wielder. And he had made promises.
I am done with restraint
. He hit Lord Foul with fire as fierce as a bayamo.
    The Despiser thrashed, howling. As if the effort were insignificant, he expelled the
krill
. Then he turned on Covenant. Enraged and savage, he countered with so much force that Covenant’s bones should have been pulverized.
    Stones heaved. Igneous slabs were tossed like dried leaves. Repercussions ripped down the remaining stalactites, filled the air with whirling debris.
    But Covenant withstood the blast. Wild magic withstood it. He had surrendered once. Never again.
    Jeremiah had found a way to defeat
moksha
Jehannum. Help was coming. All Covenant had to do was survive. And keep hurting Lord Foul. Prevent his escape. The Despiser must have believed that he would still be able to claim Jeremiah before Time collapsed in on itself. Covenant had no intention of letting that happen.
    Powers mounted in Kiril Threndor. Incinerating silver and Lord Foul’s sledge-hammer blows staggered the chamber. Covenant only knew that Stave still lived because he, Covenant, had not fallen to his knees. He no longer saw anything, heard anything. Yet he
felt
everything as if his nerves were white gold, as if his senses were wild magic. He recognized every concatenation of Lord Foul’s malevolence. He could have named each of his own responses.
    His millennia within the Arch of Time had not been wasted on him. His heart and his mind and even his leper’s body understood wild magic. He was half translated out of reality himself, refined by fire and determination until he hardly needed his own physical existence.
    He could not keep the Despiser here: he knew that. Instants were fraying. Moments bled into each other. Causes and sequences were becoming confused. Lord Foul might outlive such uncertainties: Covenant could not. He fought only to distract his foe, to engage the Despiser’s endless hatred. To make the Despiser
miss his chance
.
    Then the chance came, Lord Foul’s or Covenant’s.
    With flame and effort rather than sight, Covenant saw Jeremiah enter the chamber; saw Jeremiah running wreathed in Earthpower as clean and necessary as sunlight. The heartwood Staff in his hands blazed with a purity that pierced rocklight and argent, defied Lord Foul’s savagery.
    Behind him came Coldspray, Grueburn, and Canrik, but this contest was not for them. Like Stave and Branl, they had done more than Covenant could have asked or imagined. Their part in the Land’s fate was finished. Only Jeremiah had the power to alter the terms of Covenant’s struggle.
    And Jeremiah knew what was needed. While Covenant fought to block Lord Foul, preclude Jeremiah’s possession, Jeremiah fashioned his magicks—
    The Despiser’s instant reaction was glee, triumph, exultation. He reached for Jeremiah as if he were pouncing. But wild magic tore through the hands of Lord Foul’s power, shredded his grasp. Covenant ripped apart the Despiser’s clutch while Jeremiah wrought Earthpower.
    In the guts of Mount Thunder, the consequences of the Worm’s feeding expanded. Shock after shock, they mounted toward their final outcome. Waves ran up and down the walls as if the rock had become water. Granite pain dripped from facets of rocklight. Unnatural heat and cold gusted at Covenant’s face like gasping, like strained exhalations of time.
    In a moment or an hour—in no time at all—Lord Foul appeared to realize what was happening. He appeared to recognize that he had to flee. If he wanted freedom, he had to abandon his
deeper purpose
against the Creator. He would be trapped otherwise. He would cease to exist.
    Shrieking like the deaths of stars, he turned away.
    But he was already too late. Because Jeremiah—
    Oh, God, Jeremiah!
    —had learned how to
forbid
.
    With Earthpower and extravagance—the whetted extremity of a boy who had been hurt too much and was finally done with helplessness—Jeremiah forbade Lord Foul’s escape.
    In horror, the Despiser wheeled to face his foes again.
    Covenant he ignored. Wild magic ripped through his