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

ignore its hurt—
    Like the Raver, the monster hesitated.
    Then it recovered its fury. Still howling like myriad ghouls, like the immeasurable torment of the damned, the lurker swung Covenant again.
    The second slash cut through more of the appendage. Torrents of blood stained the waters, and were swallowed by shining. The lurker’s roar seemed to batter Covenant’s bones. Dazed by conflicting brightnesses, he could no longer see. The
krill
’s heat ached in his wrists. Soon he would be too badly burned to hold on.
    But now the monster did not hesitate. Savagely it swung yet again.
    Flopping like a doll in Horrim Carabal’s coils, Covenant delivered a third cut.
    The possessed arm was toppling. Still it had not been entirely severed. And while it fell, the Raver’s lust to rule the lurker overcame his fear of Covenant’s power. Vicious as a striking asp,
turiya
Herem surged forward.
    As if the monster’s pain and rage had become his, Covenant thought, Over my dead body.
    In a rush like delirium or exaltation, the Unbeliever and his ally hacked once more—
    —and the slain tentacle crashed down into the pool.
    Stunned by howling and hot blood, Covenant struggled to retain his grip on the
krill
; his grip on himself. Cutting off the claimed limb was a temporary victory at best. The Raver had not been harmed. If Covenant did not strike again instantly—if he did not force
turiya
to defend against him—Lord Foul’s servant would escape. At need, the Raver could claim one or more of the Feroce. He might feel demeaned by their littleness, but he could conceal himself among them nonetheless. And if Covenant failed to locate him before he rallied his strength, he could make another attempt on the lurker.
    Covenant felt like a toy in the hands of an insane juggler, utterly disoriented, impotent with vertigo. Up and down had become the same thing. He could not distinguish any of his horizons. The violence of the monster’s movements seemed to have dismembered him.
    Still he refused to accept a victory that might become defeat at any moment.
    The lurker had done its part. The rest was Covenant’s problem. He had to do something.
    Now or never.
    With as much haste as Horrim Carabal’s thrashing allowed, he tugged the chain holding Joan’s ring over his head, clasped the hard circle in his left hand. Then he slapped the ring and the dagger’s gem against each other.
    Without transition, conflagration erupted in him as if his living flesh were tinder.
    Sudden power anchored him. Disarticulated pieces of his surroundings were flung back into their natural relationships. But he did not care about his horizons, or his position in the air, or the lambent waters. The strange voice of the Feroce meant nothing to him. He needed—
    There, in the pummeled pool; in the corpse of the cut tentacle subsiding toward the depths:
turiya
Herem. He felt the Raver’s presence as if it were louder than the monster’s roar.
    —needed the lurker to drop him.
    His fierce fire succeeded. It made the monster’s coils flinch, loosen. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Horrim Carabal let go of him directly above his target; and he fell.
    For an instant, he tumbled helplessly, out of control. But he was far from the waters when the lurker released him; and his fire made everything clear. Wild magic lit his nerves as if it were percipience. He had a sharp shard of time in which to master his limbs, twist his posture into a dive.
    Still holding white gold against Loric’s gem, he struck the turbulence head first and plunged deep.
    At the last moment, he remembered to shut his eyes. This water would blind him. It would scald his skin until it fell from his bones. But he was too frantic and furious to care. And here he did not need sight: there was nothing to see. He only had to sink faster than the tentacle. He had to reach it before
turiya
could escape.
    He sensed the Raver’s terror. It filled the pool, as bright and bitter as the waters. But he also felt the slain appendage below him. It was close.
    As he hit the still-squirming arm, he hammered the
krill
into it and sent a blast of passion along its length, striving with his last breath, his last strength, to shred the Raver. If he accomplished nothing else with his life, he would at least give Linden the lurker of the Sarangrave as a potent ally rather than a lethal foe.
    —writ in water.
    Delirious and resolved, he poured out his heart until he felt
turiya
Herem’s spirit begin to