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

northeast. Hyn’s straining betrayed that the mare had not recovered her full strength. Both Hynyn and Khelen labored over the barren terrain. Still they had reserves of stamina. Linden understood their physical prowess no better than she comprehended their ability to find their way within
caesures
, or their strange insight into the mind of Horrim Carabal. She knew only that Earthpower flowed richly in their veins. They seemed to draw their vitality from the Land itself, regardless of its blasted condition.
    Kevin’s Dirt loomed overhead, but she banished its effects almost reflexively. The threat of the lurker was behind her, and she no longer feared to exert her Staff.
    Gradually the darker gloom of night became a kind of twilight over the region. Ahead of her, the ground undulated in slow dips and gradual rises toward its dulled horizons. Then the terrain became rougher—the hollows deeper, the sides steeper—until the horses appeared to traverse a protracted series of impact craters: the ancient outcome of fallen meteors, or of terrible bolts of theurgy. But the Ranyhyn were not daunted. Instead they seemed to gain fresh resolve from the difficulties, as if they were nearing their obscure destination.
    And eventually the terrain on Linden’s right began rising. Along a line parallel to the path of the mounts, southwest to northeast, the stricken ground piled higher until it formed a ridge with a front as sheer as a cliff and a more gradual slope at its back. To her left were only more hollows or craters; but opposite them, the ridge jutted with its gutrock exposed as if a range of higher hills had been cleft.
    Approaching the highest point of the ridge, the Ranyhyn slowed. Rubble, boulders, and other detritus cluttered the base of the cliff, but did not extend far enough to obstruct the horses. Hyn, Hynyn, and Khelen had a different reason for easing their pace.
    In the lead, Jeremiah rose on Khelen’s back as if he were standing in stirrups. He punched his fists at the sky, defying the reaving of the stars. “This is
it
!” he shouted. “Malachite! That cliff is
riddled
with it!”
    While Hyn jolted to a trot, Linden tried to spot what Jeremiah had seen.
    At first, the profile of the ridge held her. From her perspective, it cut off perhaps a third of the heavens. Irrationally she hoped that she would not see more stars dying. But the slow carnage continued overhead. She could only spare herself that vista by lowering her gaze.
    Even then, she could not locate the source of Jeremiah’s exultation.
    Fortunately the Feroce had renewed her recollection of black rock elucidated by green veins. When she concentrated inward, tuned her senses to the hue and pitch and timbre of memory, and then studied the cliff-face once more, she began to discern flakes and small seams of the mineral she sought. They were difficult to detect, in part because they felt miniscule, too trivial for her son’s needs, and in part because they were crowded among streaks of verdigris, knobs of blunt granite, porous patches of sandstone; masked by reflective facets of quartz, mica, feldspar, other crystalline stones. But there
was
malachite.
    It did not look like enough.
    Yet Jeremiah’s excitement was undaunted. As his mount halted, he vaulted to the ground; ran a few strides toward the ridge. “There!” he called as though he wanted the world to hear him. “It isn’t much. I mean, on the surface. But deeper—! If we dig into the cliff far enough”—his hands sketched dimensions in the air—“some of it is practically pure!”
    Pointing, he indicated a section of the ridgefront a long stone’s throw above his head.
    Oh, God. Linden would have asked, How can we get at it? But a different problem had already occurred to her. Assuming that the cliff could be excavated, surely the stone above it would collapse? Anyone digging there would be crushed and buried.
    The Ranyhyn had found what Jeremiah needed.
    It was effectively inaccessible.
    Hyn had stopped. Her breathing wheezed faintly as she waited for Linden to dismount. But Linden was too shaken to move.
    Like her, Stave remained mounted. His mien revealed nothing as he asked, “Will not these boulders suffice, young Jeremiah?” He nodded toward the debris at the foot of the cliff. “They also contain portions of malachite.”
    Jeremiah turned to glare at the
Haruchai
. “Sure,” he snorted with the inadvertent disdain of a boy. “If I wanted to build a door for