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

delighted him. She might—
    Struggling to articulate ideas as they formed, he said urgently, “A message. I need you to carry a message for me. As fast as you can. To Lin”—he stumbled momentarily—“to the woman with the stick of power. The woman you tried to hurt. Tell her to remember forbidding.
    “We’re going to need it.”
Without forbidding, there is too little time
. “And she has resources we don’t. If nothing else, she’s met Caerroil Wildwood. He knows a thing or two about forbidding.” In an ancient age, he had participated in the formation of the Colossus as an interdict against the Ravers. “Why else did he give her those runes?”
    The end must be opposed by the truth of stone and wood,
orcrest
and refusal.
    “
Tell
her,” Covenant ordered; pleaded. “Remember forbidding. Promise me you’ll tell her.”
    Now the Feroce appeared to grow stronger. They stood straighter. Their fires burned more brightly. “It is done,” they announced. “Be assured, Pure One. Even now, your words hasten. We are little, but we are also many. We inhabit our High God’s realm from verge to verge. Your command will be fulfilled.”
    Like a sigh made flesh, Covenant sagged in Horrim Carabal’s coils. He had done what he could. Now there was only one dilemma left to consider. One intolerable choice to make.
    —save or damn—
    His frailty blurred such distinctions. The Lords had misremembered their prophecy about the wielder of white gold; or they had misunderstood it. The words should have been “save
and
damn.” If he let himself die now, his end would be wasted. And if he let himself be healed, his life would be wasted later.
    Therefore he ought to choose life. While he lived, he could hope that something might change, for good or ill.
And betimes some wonder is wrought to redeem us
. Preferring death when life was offered was just despair by another name.
    But, God, he was tired! He had already endured too much. In his present state, he imagined that the final darkness would be a kinder fate than hurtloam and more striving.
    And he was a leper. For a man like him, nothing undermined his foundations more than being cured. Because he was who he was, he did not know how to bear the moral contradiction of being spared.
    Like the
Haruchai
—
    By that reasoning, he should have refused Brinn’s succor.
    But he had always been weak. Time and again, he had turned away from the strictures of his illness because he loved the Land. And Linden. In his own way, he also loved being human.
    And he had always needed help.
    Under the right circumstances, weakness was a form of strength.
    While he wandered in his personal gyre, circling its edges like trapped flotsam, the Feroce renewed their thetic chant. The arms of the lurker held firm, waiting. But Branl grew restive. He, too, was in pain. The damage to his body he would doubtless survive. Certainly he would ignore it. The damage to his spirit was another matter.
    “Ur-Lord,” he said at last. “Hurtloam awaits you. Will you not accept its benison? Alone, I cannot preserve your life. The lurker and the Feroce cannot. Kevin’s Dirt will make corruption of your scalds until no recovery is possible.
    “It was not for this that the
ak-Haru
healed your earlier hurts. That he saw worth in the lurker’s preservation does not entail that he desired your death.”
    Covenant lifted his head, stared at the Humbled. With two words, Branl had shown him a way out of his confusion: Kevin’s Dirt. Hurtloam would heal him as completely as his various maimings permitted. But it had never altered his essential nature. And some of its effects might be transient. His illness might thrive again under the bale of Kevin’s Dirt.
    Was that not the underlying purpose of Kastenessen’s curse? To thwart the deepest needs of those who loved the Land? In Linden’s case, to limit her access to Earthpower? In Covenant’s, to deny his fitness to be loved in return?
    Save and damn.
    Finally he faced the last of the Humbled. So that he would not be misunderstood, he told Branl, “Only if you join me.”
    Once before, he had required the Master to accept healing. Now Branl needed it as much as he did, if for different reasons.
    He had no idea what he would do if Branl refused. But the Humbled did not. Nodding once, Branl said, “If that is your wish. I have traveled too far from myself to gainsay you.”
    Then he announced to the Feroce, “The Pure One has prepared himself. We