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

was trying to tell Covenant something. It urged him to
think
—
    The inundation of Lifeswallower’s delta. The bitter lash of salt.
    If he judged only by smell, he would believe that the whole of the Great Swamp had already been ripped out of existence. Uncounted millennia of poisons no longer reeked; no longer spread their nauseating odors into the air. The fury of wind and water effaced every other perception.
    Surely that
meant
something?
    Streamers full of fatal light swept closer, riding the blasts. One of them poured up the precipice in front of Covenant and Branl. Squirming like a serpent of moisture, it writhed among the stones. A ribbon as luminous as the enchanted stone of the Lost Deep brushed Covenant’s cheek before he could jump back. For an instant like a heartbeat, it appeared to curl around Branl. Its touch was damp and gelid, bitterly cold, as fierce as the caress of a
caesure
. But the fog did not react to Covenant and his companion; to Joan’s ring or Loric’s
krill
. Oblivious to anything that was not food for the Worm, it ran on along the wind, gusting westward.
    Now Covenant saw a shape within the hermetic mass of the storms, a dark form limned by the heavy rise and fall of the lightning. Infelice had described the Worm as
no more than a range of hills
in size.
An earthquake might swallow it
. But to him, it looked more like a chain of mountains breasting inexorably through the seas. Its power was staggering: he was barely able to keep his feet. Perhaps his appalled senses exaggerated the Worm’s physical bulk; but nothing could measure its sheer
force
. He was too human to look at it for more than a moment at a time.
    By comparison, the lurker was trivial in spite of its polluted mass. It could do nothing to thwart the Worm’s passage. It could only die.
    And the World’s End was definitely heading west. Toward Mount Thunder.
    Hellfire! Hell and damnation! Covenant was thinking about the problem backward. The wind carried away the rancid effluviums of Lifeswallower and the Sarangrave. Of course it did. But considered from a different perspective, the gale
blocked
the fetor.
    And how did the Worm find its prey? How did it locate the
Elohim
in their myriad hiding places? By scent. It smelled them out. Not in any ordinary sense, no. They did not emit a mundane aroma. But their magicks, the mystical essence of who they were:
that
the Worm could detect.
    If those emanations could be detected, perhaps they could also be blocked. By a different kind of power. A force that was inherently
wrong
for the Worm, antithetical to its appetites.
    More urgently, Branl insisted, “Ur-Lord.”
    The Worm’s puissance had become explicit, even to Covenant’s blunted nerves. Its might shone through the rigid rocks of the headland as if they were transparent.
    He guessed that it was still two or three leagues out to sea. But at that speed—He had no time to doubt himself. Practically reeling, he wheeled away from the oriel; away from the heedless band of fog.
    And as he moved, he yelled, “Feroce! I need you!”
    Glints of green showed in the jumble. They were too far away.
    “I need your High God! I need him
now
!”
    The wind snatched words from his mouth. They disappeared among the stones, meaningless. Nevertheless the fires came closer. Gleams flashed from place to place, apparently running.
    As the first creature emerged from the maze, the voice of the Feroce moaned urgently, “Pure One? What must our High God do? He must not perish!”
    Streamers searched the turmoil of the delta. Lightning pulsed with every heave of the Worm’s bulk. Seas hurled chaos at the cliffs. The silent shout of storms constrained by the Worm’s aura made the ground under Covenant lurch as if the foundations of the promontory were in spasm.
    An earthquake might swallow it
. Under the right circumstances, Linden could trigger an earthquake. She and the Staff of Law had that kind of strength. Covenant did not: not with Joan’s ring.
    Haste and frenzy gripped him. “Listen fast.” He was hardly coherent. “Try to understand. I don’t want your High God dead. He can’t fight the Worm. But he has to
act
like he’s going to fight. He has to rear up. Make himself as big as he can. Right
there
.” Covenant pointed at the drowned stretch of Lifeswallower to the north. “I need him to block the way,” confuse the Worm’s instincts, fill the Worm’s senses with corrupt emanations; mask the powers hidden in Mount