Thus Linden's transition from the Land truly begins and for some reason I'm heartstuck by: Pain was only the other side of love. That seems to be Linden in a nutshell. In the last dissection Variol Son wrote,There Linden let go. The mountian towered over her, as imponderable as the gaps between the stars. It was heavier than sorrow, greater than loss. Nothing would ever heal what it had endured. She was only mortal: but Mt. Thunder's grief would go on without let or surcearse, unambergrised for all time.
And the wind took her, and she felt herself go out.
Out into the dark.
_________
But when she was fully in the grip of the wind, she no longer felt it's force. It reft her from the Land as if she were mist; but like mist she could not be hurt now. She had been battered numb. When the numbness passed, her pain would find it's voice again and cry out.. But that prospect has lost its power to fighten her. Pain was only the other side of love; and she did not regret it.
Now however, with Covenant's help, she has accepted her parent's legacy, her own blackness, and decided that it does not prevent her from making choices that count.
Evil was another side of the equation. No matter how Gibbon tried to pluck her soul apart and all the fears she faced...she had learned how to fight. Despite the trials, abominations and lessons of possesion...she had learned how to reach out. And by accepting help and friendship she finally moved out from behind her defenses and found love. She had become mortal.
My heart has rooms that sigh with dust
And ashes in the hearth.
They must be cleared and blown away
By the daylight's breath.
But I cannot essay the task,
For even dust to me is dear;
For dust and ashes still recall,
My love was here.
I know not how to say Farewell,
When Farewell is the word
That stays alone for me to say
Or will be heard.
But I cannot speak out that word
Or ever let my loved one go:
How can I bear it that these rooms
are empty so?
I sit among the dust and hope
That dust will cover me.
I stir the ashes in the hearth,
Though cold they may be.
I cannot bear to close the door,
To seal my loneliness away
While dust and ashes yet remain
Of my love's day.
Indeed the refrains of Pitchwife's song sum up the deep psychological/emotional madness and beauty that are the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Thomas' nightmarish journey and lonely triumph at the end of the 1st and Linden's tormented healing and loss of her beloved in the 2nd.
Akin to Covenant's returns (to our world) Linden is but contamplative vapor stretching between two worlds. As she floats through the void she interperates the tune in terms of her father but, this time, looks at the situation in another way: his ashes aren't hers and his choices aren't either--she merely used her (preceived) quilt in that instance to build her defenses and block the light of love out of her world.
His loathing of himself had grown so great that it had become a loathing of life. It had been like her mother's religion, only able to prove itself true by imposing itself upon the people around it. But it had been false; and she thought of him now with regret and pity which she had never been able to afford. He had been wrong about her: she had loved him dearly. She had loved both of her parents, although she had been badly misled by her own bitterness.
Covenant's spirit comes to her in the translation: thanking and consoling her and wondrous at her ignition of the healing of the Land. (I don't know about you, but it's hard to go on at this point--all I want to do is breakdown and cry all over again...). Linden infused the Sunbane into her soul but couldn't do it till she accepted and transcended the "blackness", after that it was all sheer will. But as to how Convenant did what he did he credits Hile Troy.
Caer-Caveral had to give up his life to open the door between life and death to restore Hollian, break the Law and to the give power of action to Thomas' specter. Since Covenant was the white gold he could oppose Foul even in death. Foul didn't understand that and, fortunately, focused his millenia formed angst on his "tool's" taunting mortal form. Then by blasting Convenant's own fire at his specter Foul burned away Thomas' venom and freed him.
(ah so TC wasn't as foolish as we thought after all!)He and I are one. But he doesn't seem to know that. Or maybe he hates it too much to admit it. Evil can't exist unless the capacity to stand against it also exists. And you and I are the Land--in a manner of speaking, anyway. He's one side of us. That's his paradox. He's one side of us. We're one side of him. When he killed me, he was really tring to kill the other half of himself. He just made me stronger. As long as I accepted him--or accepted myself, my own power, didn't try to do to him what he wanted to do to me--he couldn't get past me.
Linden then asks him how the First and Pitchwife were able to flee the Cavewrights. Covenant's spiritual chuckle amazes her, she had never heard him come close to laughter. He had to do something, Foul had given him so much power that he decided to make something, anything, rise out of the Wightbarrow (which always makes me wonder just what "abomination" would the Cavewright's have summoned if not Drool?
) and while the Cavewright's bowed to it the Giants were free to seach for her (with TC's help).Thinking about what he had done for her, she almost forgot she would never see him alive again.
The void begins to come into definition and Linden know she is losing him, but Convenant says.
__________"There's no need for that. I'm part of you now. You'll always remember."
At the edge of her heart, he stopped. She was barely able to hear him.
"I'll be with you as long as you live."
The cool air of springtime caresses Linden Avery's pain as an older man calls her name and attempts to help her to her knees.
Her eyes were slow to focus; her sight seemed to come back from a great distance. She was conscious of the dawn, the blurred gray stone, the barren hollow set like a bowl of death into the heart of the green woods. But gradually she made out Covenant's form. He was stretched on the rock nearby, within a painted triangle of blood. The light stroked his dear face like the touch of annunciation.
From the center of his chest jutted the knife which had made everything else necessary.
The man holding her repeated her name. "I'm so sorry," he murmured. "I never should've gotten you into this. We shouldn't have let him keep her. But we didn't know he was in this much danger.
As Dr. Berenford tends to her wounds he tells her about Mrs. Jason and her children and how they came to his house each with their right hands horribly burned. The same family that Linden had seen at the courthouse, on her first day in town, carrying a sign that said 'Repent". Apparently they, and others, had killed a horse for the blood splashed at Haven Farm. What they had against Covenant or Joan Dr. Berenford couldn't fathom but regardless they had been caught up in an apocalptic/religious fever that didn't break until Linden, herself, had snapped them out of it. Mrs. Jason had given him directions him to the altar.
He notified Sherriff Lytton and they both discoved Joan asleep in the house. She had shown no signs of violence on the way to the hospital.
Berenford had directed Lytton to take Joan away, he didn't want the Sherriff to think Linden was responsible for any connection to the sacrifice. As Linden regards the Doctor's worrisome face and compassion a revelation comes upon her that goodness and Covenant's spirit are alive in the world. Then he guides her back to town where they might try to heal a multitude of burned hands.
"I'll tell the Sheriff where to find him. At least we can make sure he gets a decent burial."
"Yes, " she answered. The sun filled her eyes with brightness. Together, she and her companion started up the barren hillside toward the trees.
With her right hand, Linden Avery kept a sure hold on her wedding ring.
A great wrap-up to one of the greatest works of fantasy. 
