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

bleakness, his tone of confrontation. In his way, he was as irate as the Humbled. “Horrim Carabal held up his end. He didn’t have to. He could have left us to the
skest
. After all, he hates wild magic. He hates the
krill
. But he kept his word anyway. We wouldn’t be here talking about it if he hadn’t honored his agreement. Maybe you can ignore that. I can’t.
    “First you wanted me to break my promise to the Ranyhyn. Now you want me to turn my back on an alliance. That doesn’t sound like you. It doesn’t sound like any
Haruchai
I’ve ever met.” He had to grit his teeth to keep from shouting. “What’s happened to you?”
    Dark as incarnations of wrath, Clyme and Branl glared at Covenant. For a long moment, they did not reply. They did not move. Perhaps deliberately, they gave him a chance to fear that they would turn away from him. The Masters had spurned Stave—
    But then, suddenly, Branl snatched the bundle of Loric’s
krill
from inside his tunic. With a flick of his wrists, he spun the blade free of Anele’s tattered heritage. As the gem’s argence blazed out, he stabbed the dagger into the grass.
    In the
krill
’s radiance, both Branl and Clyme looked hieratic, chthonic, as if they had already taken their places among the Dead. The reflections in their eyes gave them the authority of spirits unconstrained by the boundaries of life and time.
    “Ur-Lord,” Clyme announced, “we are the Humbled in all sooth, the Humbled triumphant and maimed. Have you forgotten so much that you do not recognize the men whom we have chosen to become?” His ire sounded more and more like lamentation. It sounded like fear. “Do you not recall that it is our task to embody you among our people? You are the purpose and substance of our lives.
    “If you do not return to Linden Avery, and do so swiftly, you will perish. We cannot stem the harm which Kevin’s Dirt wreaks within you. Nor can the lurker of the Sarangrave succor you. Without the balm of the Staff of Law, your end is certain.
    “Come good or ill, boon or bane, you must not heed the counsel of the
ak-Haru
.”
    As Clyme spoke, Covenant finally heard what lay behind the frustrated fury of the Humbled. As though the insight had come to him from the lost expanse of the Arch of Time, he understood; and he found himself trying to laugh, although he wanted to weep. Oh, Clyme. Oh, Branl. Have you come to this? After so much fidelity and striving, is this the best you can do?
    Their beliefs were too small to vindicate the race of the
Haruchai
. At the same time, they were too much for Covenant.
    That was their tragedy. They had attached an almost metaphysical significance to a lone and lonely man who could not bear the burden. He was unequal to the task of meaning, not because he was sick and weak—although he was—but because he was just one man, nothing more. Even if he transcended his own inadequacies indefinitely, he could not provide transcendence for anybody else. The
Haruchai
needed to find it within themselves, not in him.
    Nothing else would relieve the bereavement which had haunted them for millennia.
    But they were not Giants: they would not respond to laughter; even to laughter as strained and loss-ridden as Covenant’s. Their hearts spoke a different language.
    As if he were translating alien precepts into pragmatic speech, he replied, “Did I ever tell you that I respect you? I hope I did. I’ve said as many hurtful things as Brinn did, but none of it would have been worth saying if I didn’t respect you absolutely. You’re the standard I use to measure myself—or you would be if I thought that highly of who I am. The idea that men like you care whether I live or die makes me want to prove you’re right about me.
    “But what’s at stake here—what we’re talking about—what we have to do—isn’t about whether or not I live through it. It’s about the Land, and the Worm, and Lord Foul. We can’t let the fact that I’m sick choose our commitments for us.
    “I’ve made promises. Now I have to take the risk of keeping them. I have to be willing to pay whatever they cost.”
    And his agreement with the lurker had been founded on a lie: the mistaken belief that he was the Pure One of
jheherrin
legend. He needed to redeem that falsehood.
    Clyme and Branl watched him without saying anything; without any expression that he could interpret. Clyme braced his fists on his hips. Branl folded his arms like barriers across his chest.