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

knocked the knuckles of his fists together as if he were stifling an impulse to hit someone.
    Like the cut of a blade, Clyme stated, “His words were hurtful to no purpose. He did not reproach what we have done. His reproach was that we are who we are. Is the wind to be faulted because it blows? Are the stones to be accused because they are not trees? We are
Haruchai
. We cannot be other than ourselves.”
    “Mayhap it was his right to speak as he did,” Branl conceded. He was not less indignant than Clyme: he had merely assumed their shared burden of truthfulness. “He is the
ak-Haru
, Guardian of the One Tree. No other
Haruchai
has equaled his attainments.”
    “Nevertheless,” Clyme snapped. “We care naught for his right to speak. Our true grievance, ur-Lord, is that he sought to counsel you, and his counsel was
false
.”
    He spat that word as if it were a curse.
    “False?” Covenant nearly choked. “Hellfire! How do you get to a conclusion like that? You said it yourself. He’s the
ak-Haru
, for God’s sake! How can you even
think
a word like ‘false,’ never mind say it out loud?”
    Now Clyme did not relent. His tone held an outrage so deep that it seemed to arise from the marrow of his bones.
    “We do not charge him with malign intent, but rather with mistaken comprehension. As he has misesteemed us, so he has misjudged the Land’s peril.
    “The lurker’s plight is of no consequence. That monstrous wight is an avatar of Corruption. A Raver’s possession cannot increase its misbegotten appetites. It requires no urging to seek our ruin.
    “Recall,” he insisted as though Covenant had tried to interrupt him, “that the Soulsease has found new depths among the roots of Gravin Threndor. The Defiles Course will not resume its accustomed flow until the immeasurable abyss of the Lost Deep has been filled. Thus the poisons which supply the lurker’s most necessary sustenance have been much reduced. Already its hungers swell. They must. Having grown so vast, they must be vastly fed. Such a creature will not long remember that it fears your magicks, or Linden Avery’s. Your alliance was a thing of the moment. It cannot endure.
    “To abandon all other needs in the lurker’s name is madness.”
    Madness? Covenant wanted to protest. Is that what you think of Brinn? Is that what you think of
me
? But the Humbled were not done.
    “That is reason enough to set aside the
ak-Haru
’s counsel,” put in Branl. “Yet there are other reasons as well.
    “Has not the Ardent cited the ravages of the
skurj
and the Sandgorgons in concert? Has not Kevin’s Dirt been sent to weaken us? And is not Kastenessen the source of both evils? There lies your true path, ur-Lord. You must join with Linden Avery to challenge the mad
Elohim
’s malevolence. That task is paramount. An end to Kevin’s Dirt must be accomplished.
    “Doubtless Kastenessen is both spurred and guided by
moksha
Jehannum. Certainly the Sandgorgons heed the Raver, seduced as they are by the remnants of
samadhi
Sheol’s spirit. Yet the power is Kastenessen’s. There can be no true defense of the Land while he stands in opposition.”
    Facing his companions, Covenant floundered. Anger he had expected. They were
Haruchai
, Masters and Humbled; proud. Naturally they had taken umbrage at Brinn’s judgments. But he had not expected them to express their indignation like this.
    Shaken and dismayed, he felt a reflexive desire to argue. He could have pointed out that Kastenessen was almost certainly positioned somewhere among the secrets of Mount Thunder, and that the distance was insurmountable. No doubt Linden was closer; but finding her would not take Covenant nearer to Kastenessen.
    While he tried to assemble the necessary words, however, he realized that the distance was effectively irrelevant.
Turiya
’s head start was already insurmountable. Under the circumstances, one impossible distance was much like another.
    In any case, no rational argument would sway the Humbled. They were too angry. Behind their masks, their attitude was based on a passion that Covenant did not understand.
    Something
had stung a primal nerve in them: primal and intimate. They had been hurt in a place at once carefully hidden and exquisitely raw. The pain of that singular wound drove them to extremes of emotion which Covenant had not witnessed before in any
Haruchai
.
    Unsure of himself, he tried to be cautious. “The Feroce saved us.” Still he winced at his own