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

like a beast devouring tidbits. Moments after Branl ceased his butchery, they were gone, all of them.
    Oh, Clyme! Is this what you think Brinn wanted?
    When he was done, Branl swam below Covenant, squinting upward with galled eyes.
    “Are you content, ur-Lord?” Grief clenched his visage. “
Turiya
Raver is unmade. Naught of him endures.”
    But the same was true of Clyme.
    Covenant had no answer. He wanted to weep; but he was in too much pain for tears. The Feroce called him the Pure One. They had asked him to
believe
. But he had not redeemed them, just as he not redeemed their distant ancestors, the
jheherrin
.
    The Humbled had proven themselves. Nevertheless the difference between Saltheart Foamfollower’s example and that of Branl and Clyme was more than Covenant knew how to bear.

5.
    Coming

    Fury and thrashing were gone from the Sarangrave. By increments, the astringent light subsided from the pool. Breathing became marginally easier. With elaborate care, the lurker lifted Thomas Covenant high into the air. Another tentacle arose to bear Branl of the Humbled and High Lord Loric’s
krill
.
    Stately as a procession, at once celebratory and funereal, Horrim Carabal carried its saviors eastward above the writhen trees of the Flat.
    Scores of the Feroce accompanied them. Scurrying around copses, sinking and then rising in quagmires, drifting like mist across streams and backwaters, the creatures went ahead of their High God’s allies. And as they moved, they kept their emerald fires bright in their hands. Like the Wraiths of Andelain, the Feroce thronged forward in homage, escorting Covenant and Branl through the contortions and perils of the lurker’s demesne.
    But Covenant ignored the monster’s acolytes. With the last of his scant endurance, he clung to Joan’s ring and tried to stifle images of butchery. The manner in which Branl had destroyed Clyme burned in his mind. The sight seemed acid-etched inside his lids: whenever he closed his eyes, he saw it. The world had become a visceral dismay that refused utterance.
    Around him the fires of the Feroce shed little insight: a gleam of green across scum and mirkweed here, a brief flash on scrub and branches there. But the
krill
still shone, casting its spectral light through the Sarangrave. The waters had destroyed the dagger’s protective fabric covering. The haft’s heat must have hurt Branl’s hand; but if it did, he gave no sign. His true wounds ran deeper. His countenance was a fist which he could not unclench, and he did not glance at Covenant.
    In the gem’s echo of wild magic, tree limbs and marsh reeds as ghostly as spirits bobbed as if they were bowing. Harsh grasses swayed from side to side in consternation or awe.
    Then the tentacles paused above a small pond as clear and dark as the ravaged heavens: an eyot of starker blackness in the crowding mass of the Flat. There the damp voice of the Feroce rose. “Our High God loathes the touch of such water,” the creatures intoned. “You will fall. But we have caused the water to recall its ancient purity. It will soothe you while we prepare a more worthy consolation.”
    Soothe you, Covenant thought dully. That would be nice. His body was covered in blisters that stung like the tears which he could not shed. Anything cool—anything that was not gall and bitter lamentation—
    The arms of the lurker sank close to the lightless pond. Briefly they hovered as if they were considering their options. Then they uncoiled.
    With Branl beside him, Covenant dropped into cleanliness that resembled bliss.
    The Feroce had spoken truly. Their magicks had made this water pure. He could drink from it, and drink, without any aftertaste of the seepages and rot which polluted the wetland. Nevertheless it did not heal. It was not Glimmermere. It did not wash away hurts or cleanse souls.
    He needed something more. Untenable weeping filled his chest. He could not shut his mind’s eyes against the brutal slash of the
krill
in Branl’s hand.
    The
Haruchai
swam at Covenant’s back, supporting him. That was well. Covenant was too weak to move. And he did not want to look at Clyme’s killer.
    Perhaps to ease his burned hands, Branl held Loric’s knife underwater. That, too, was well. Darkness was another kind of balm. It eased Covenant’s aggrieved nerves.
    After a time, he remembered to replace the chain of Joan’s ring around his neck. Then he asked the dusk, “Did you have to do that? Couldn’t you just kill