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

accumulating pressure of the Worm’s advance. But then he thought that he saw darkness swell near the boundary between the delta and the ocean. The waters there piled higher as if they were surmounting an obstacle.
    “Do you descry them, ur-Lord? They cling to the lurker’s sides.”
    Covenant shook his head. He was sure of the monster now. In the center of his vista, it burst above the waves. Like a tectonic plate thrusting upward, the lurker jutted into the air. Breakers slammed against Horrim Carabal and were flung aside. Brandishing scores of tentacles like threats, it stretched higher, taller than any Giantship. Its central mass was a match for the Worm’s. And it spread itself wide, wider than the coming catastrophe: a barricade against havoc. Clearly the monster understood its task.
    But
them
? Clinging to the lurker anywhere? No. His eyes were too weak.
    The lurker was too weak as well. In spite of its size and muscle, its emanations did not reach Covenant. He felt every surge of the Worm’s approach; felt the harsh chill of the fog and the static charge of lightnings. But Horrim Carabal was nothing more than a shape in the distance, scarcely visible: too mortal to hinder the World’s End.
    Nevertheless the Worm slowed. Apparently it could sense the lurker’s presence, although Covenant could not. A wall of malign toxins had arisen from the waters. The Worm slackened its haste as if it had become uncertain.
    Them?
    Covenant tried to plead for an explanation, but he had no air and no words.
    Yet clearly Branl had not forgotten the effects of Kevin’s Dirt on Covenant. The Humbled answered Covenant’s soundless query. “Ur-Lord, they are ur-viles. They are Waynhim.”
    Covenant stared, and panted, and could not think. Ur-viles and Waynhim? Here?
    Why?
    Branl pitched his voice to pierce the blast’s lurid wail. “I gauge that every surviving creation of the Demondim has come to oppose the Worm. Holding to the lurker’s flesh, they wield their lore. Black theurgies with the appearance of corrosion spread from hand to hand among them. These magicks are not liquid. Rather they resemble strands of incantation. As they expand, they take the form of a web.”
    Covenant cursed his inadequate sight. He ignored the shudders rising through the headland. Fervently he concentrated on Branl; listened as if he were counting every word.
    “This web the creatures extend across the monster where it fronts the Worm. The sorcery of the web is fierce and bitter, rife with the unnatural fury of the Demondim, and of the Viles. I do not doubt that Linden Avery would name it
wrongness
. Yet the lurker takes no notice. Clearly the web does not pain the High God of the Feroce.”
    Covenant groaned and swore because he could not
see
it. He recognized only Horrim Carabal’s bulk rising like midnight in the Worm’s path. If the glow of the Worm’s lurid aura glistened on the lurker’s exposed flesh, or on the weird theurgy of the ur-viles and Waynhim, those sights lay beyond his reach.
    Like the world at the mercy of its own death, he was mostly helpless, yet not helpless enough to be spared the burden of bearing witness. And he was not blind to the Worm. Its power shone, vivid as etch-work, through every crouched or yearning menhir around him. It shone through the flesh of his arms and chest, lit every bone. He was as vague to himself as mist. Without Branl’s solidity at his side, Branl’s uncompromising substance, he might have been torn apart and scattered by the gale.
    If he could not see the lurker distinctly—and could not see the creatures or their lore at all—he could still watch the approach of the World’s End.
    “It appears,” Branl said, “that your ploy may accomplish its intent. The lurker and the Demondim-spawn present a barricade of ill and evil, of ancient poisons and unnatural knowledge. It does not bar wind and storm and seas, though the lurker’s form does so. Yet it disturbs perception. It would offend Linden Avery’s percipience. It defies my efforts to name its essence.”
    And it was working. Covenant felt that in every nerve of his disease-ridden body. It was
working
.
    Like the lurker itself, the strange theurgy of the web confused the Worm’s senses. In spite of their fluid shapes and their arrogance, the
Elohim
were beings of Law. They existed in accordance with the strictures of the Earth’s creation. But Horrim Carabal was a perversion of Law. And the weird powers and