Date: 2012-05-29 21:30:18+02:00

Lethe

PEG KERR

M

ATTHEW SLEPT LATE; he had been called out in the middle of the night to deliver a baby. Arriving back at the clinic at dawn, he had immediately fallen into bed. Now, an urgent knocking jolted him awake two hours past his usual rising time. He dragged himself out from underneath the blankets and stumbled groggily to the dispensary door, opening it to admit a boy.

“Hev’rae—Gremekke?” the boy asked, panting, peering up uncertainly at the wooden placard above the door frame.

Matthew glanced at the shelf, saw that Gremekke’s kit was gone, and shook his head. “No, he’s out. Will I serve? I’m his assistant, Hev’rae Mateo.”

“Oh!” the boy exclaimed, relieved. “If you’re a healer too, can you come with me? An accident—a man’s hurt very bad, blood coming from his mouth.”

“Yes, I’ll come. Let me get my kit.” Matthew picked up his satchel of medical tools and supplies, which was emblazoned on the side with the symbol for the Peace Corps. “What happened?” he asked as he ushered the boy out.

“My father, Pietro the stonecutter, sent me. His crew was working raising blocks, and the scaffolding collapsed…” the boy grimaced.

“How far?”

“It’s the nearest part of the city wall—but please hurry, Hev’rae.” The boy led the way, weaving nimbly through passersby and ducking quickly around corners, kicking up little puffs of dust as he ran. Matthew jogged in his wake, his kit banging against his hip with every step. He still was not accustomed to Calypso’s gravity, which was slightly higher than Earth’s, but before he had a chance to become winded they came into the plaza before the second eastern gate. More dust lingered in the air there, as well as the smell of freshly split wood. A latticework of ropes and boards hung, twisted and broken, from the upper walkway, and a group of workmen was crouched around a still form lying on the ground underneath.

One remained standing, anxiously scanning the alley entrance. When he saw them, he hurried forward, a burly man with large, dusty hands.

“My father, Pietro,” said the boy, pointing.

“This way, this way!” The stonecutter beckoned, gesturing for the others to step aside. “Jokko can move his toes, barely, but we didn’t want to hurt him any more, so we haven’t tried moving him.” He lowered his voice. “He says his chest hurts him real bad inside. I’m afraid some of his ribs are broken and are piercing his lungs. Maybe even grazing his heart”

Matthew nodded and knelt beside the injured man. He was young, Matthew judged, barely in his twenties by Earth reckoning. He had fallen on his side on a heap of stones and lay draped over a large boulder, twisted like a broken rag doll.

“I’m the hev’rae, Jokko. I’m here to patch you up since you’ve decided to try walking on air. Are you able to get deep enough breaths?”

The man drew a ragged sobbing gasp and coughed as a trickle of blood ran from one corner of his mouth. “Hurts,” he croaked.

“Don’t try to talk, then.” Jokko’s pupils were dilated, his skin clammy and alarmingly gray, and his pulse rapid and thready from shock. Parting his shirt revealed a distended belly; he was hemorrhaging internally. “Somebody get me a board we can use as a stretcher.”

They brought a plank and placed it on the ground beside the injured man. “We’re going to lift him onto it. The first thing to do is to slowly untwist his legs, and then we all lift at once, sliding hands underneath to support all parts of his back and keep it level. Don’t jiggle him.”

The men gathered around as Matthew gave his instructions. “You there, at the left shoulder—yes, you change places with that man. I want people on either side who are about the same height. Now, turn that top leg and straighten it—slowly, slowly, that’s it. Keep it up a little. All right, on the count of three, we’ll pick him up: one, two, three. Get—get that right hip higher, keep it level. Careful now, watch your footing—”

They carefully placed Jokko on the makeshift stretcher, and Matthew covered him with the cloak of one of the workers. He was rigging a strap to tie Jokko onto it when Pietro’s heavy hand fell on his shoulder. “Don’t trouble yourself further, Hev’rae.” Pietro pointed with his chin at an approaching figure.

“What?” Distracted, Matthew followed the stonecutter’s gaze to the woman who joined the small circle of helpers opposite Matthew, her shadow falling over Jokko’s face.

“She’s the only one he needs now,” Pietro said sadly.

She was a slight woman, in a loose reddish-brown dress belted with a black sash tied in a complex knot. Her age was difficult to judge: although her dark hair was streaked with gray, her face was unlined.

“I’ve come for Jokko,” she said. Her close-set gray eyes flicked around the circle, meeting Matthew’s look, and then her gaze rested on the still form at their feet.

Matthew eyed her with some confusion and then busied himself at his kit, readying a unit of saline as he threw another glance at the patient. Blood pressure had probably fallen so low that finding a vein was going to be difficult.

Pietro stared at the woman a moment, his lips clamped tightly together, and then stooped down. “Jokko. The rhyena’v’rae is here.”

The injured man made a sound, half gasp of surprise and half whimper.

“Jokko,” said the woman gently.

Tears began to roll down his cheeks. “No—no, I’m not ready,” he whispered.

“Jokko, let me help.”

“My wife.” He coughed up more blood. “My little boy.”

“Jokko, I can do nothing unless you let me.” Her voice was heavy with pity. “Please.”

He stared at her, his chest heaving. “Rhyena’v’rae, please t… take me in your arms.”

The woman knelt swiftly beside him like a mother hurrying to comfort a hurt child, and to Matthew’s horror, she gathered his head and shoulders and laid them in her lap.

Matthew immediately dropped the saline unit and plunged forward to yank the woman aside. Pietro hissed an order, and before Matthew could touch her, three bystanders had seized him and held him fast.

“What are you doing?” Matthew gasped. “You’ll injure him further, you’ll—”

Pietro stood up fast. “Don’t interfere, Hev’rae. This is no business of yours.” He glared at the three workmen. “Hold him until it’s over.”

“Let go of me!” Matthew cried, enraged. “Don’t you understand, she’ll kill him!” He furiously began struggling in earnest, twisting until his shirt tore, flailing his arms, trying to kick out backwards. “You sons of bitches, let go—uunghh!”

Pietro’s hard blow to his gut knocked the wind out of him. Gasping, Matthew fell to his knees, his captors barely managing to hold him upright. Between wheezes, he looked up painfully at the glowering stonecutter. The woman took no notice of them.

She pressed her hand gently on Jokko’s forehead and smoothed his hair back. “What do you need to say before you go?”

“Brother Sevett and I—we quarrelled… old debt. Tell him… sorry. P… pay him.”

The woman nodded gravely. “I will make it right with him. What is the amount?”

“F… five hundred.”

“You give me the authority to make the change in your estate?”

“Yes.” His eyes looked around the circle. “Witnesses.”

The woman nodded again. “Is there anything else, Jokko?”

He was growing weaker. “F… family,” he whispered.

Matthew cursed despairingly and began struggling again, more weakly this time. One of the men holding him twisted his arm behind his back and another got his head in a hammerhold, covering his mouth. Breathing hard, Matthew stopped, glaring at Pietro.

“You have provided for them,” the woman said, still ignoring the others. “Remember, you gave me your testament.”

Jokko shook his head faintly. “No, I mean… how will they go on? What… what will happen to them?”

She shook her head sadly. “I am not allowed to tell you that. But perhaps 1 can put your heart at rest for them.” She raised her head and looked at Pietro.

The stoneworker knelt down again and took the dying man’s hand. “Lad, I’ll look after the boy as if he were my own, and I’ll see that he learns a trade. And your woman—” the big man paused, tears trickling through his beard. “She’ll miss you sore, but I’ll do what I can to help her.”

“I act as witness to this promise,” the woman said. “Know that you are held by your word, because it is bound by Death. Are you willing to accept this responsibility?”

“Yes,” Pietro whispered, and he squeezed his journeyman’s hand. “I swear.”

Jokko nodded slightly. “That is all…” He closed his eyes, spent.

The woman pressed her hand to his forehead. “I am taking the pain away now, Jokko. Soon, all weariness will cease.” She smoothed back his hair. “Your life is completed. Don’t be afraid to lay it down. I will be with you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and Matthew had to strain to hear. “Here is Death now, Jokko. Do you see it? It waits for you as a friend, and you only have to reach out for it.” Her arms tightened on him briefly, and she bent to kiss his brow. As she straightened, Matthew saw Jokko exhale his last ragged breath. The onlookers sighed softly and stirred.

“He is gone,” said the woman gently. She carefully laid his head back on the plank and stood to face Pietro. “Will you have your men bring his body to his home? I will go ahead with you to inform his widow.”

Matthew jerked his head violently and the hand over his mouth was removed. “Wait!” He shook off the remaining hands that held him and got stiffly to his feet. “What do you think you—why did you interfere? If I could have gotten him to the clinic, he would have had a chance!”

“I warned you,” Pietro began threateningly.

She stopped him with a peremptory gesture, saying, “No, the hev’rae came to do his job.” She turned back to Matthew. “Do not blame yourself—or me, if I was called to do mine.”

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“My name is Teah. I’m a lethe.”

He stared at her, perplexed.

“It’s my profession,” she added patiently. She glanced at Pietro. “I must go; I’m needed elsewhere.” And with that, she left with the stonecutter. The work crew hoisted the plank to their shoulders and followed, bringing Jokko home for the last time.

Gremekke was leaning against the dispensary counter eating bread and sausage when Matthew arrived back at the clinic. The older healer was a portly man, with a rumpled fringe of gray hair around his tonsure, and fleshy cheeks that almost enveloped his eyes when he smiled. “That baby took its own sweet time,” he greeted Matthew.

Matthew dropped his kit on the shelf and turned to the sink. “It wasn’t the baby,” he replied curtly. “I was called out on an accident after I got back. Workman fell from a scaffold.”

Something in his tone prompted Gremekke to look up from his plate and watch as Matthew splashed water on his face and reached for a towel. “You lost him, I think,” said the older man finally.

Matthew gave his face a final wipe and threw the towel angrily down on the counter. “But it wasn’t my fault, Gremekke, I swear. I could have saved him, but the bystanders prevented me from working on him so that some local priestess could do some last-rites nonsense.” His fist clenched. “Dammit, Gremekke, they hit me!”

“Ah,” Gremekke nodded. Unruffled, he took another bite of sausage. “Don’t take it personally. So you’ve met Teah. Didn’t you read the cultural report I compiled and had sent to you?”

Caught by surprise, Matthew blinked. “Gremekke, there were fifteen hundred pages of it!”

Gremekke sighed. “I see I might have spared myself the trouble.”

Matthew flushed uncomfortably. “I’ve started it, and I’ve been looking over it nights, when I’m not out on call. I really couldn’t finish it before shipping out; the Corps gave me so little time to prepare.”

“Well,” said Gremekke mildly, “you have been here for a month now. And if you had finished reading it, you would have been prepared to meet her. She’s the only rhyena’v’rae left in the city, maybe on all of Calypso.”

“She called herself a… a lethe.”

Gremekke smiled. “She pegged you right away as Terran, then. Your accent probably gave you away. “Lethe’ is the word you Terrans used to describe the rhyena’v’raien they met after Re-Contact. Don’t you remember your Greek mythology? “Lethe’ was the name of one of the rivers in Hades. When a dead soul drank from it, the water erased all memories of its former life.” Gremekke thoughtfully crumbled some of the bread on his plate. “The Calypsan word we use, rhyena’v’rae, is more complicated. It means both ‘death watcher’ and ‘death cradler.’ “

Matthew shook his head. “I don’t understand.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Look, there’s no reason for me to put up with what happened today. I’m thinking of lodging a complaint with the city.”

“If you do, you’re a fool,” Gremekke replied, exasperated. “No, now listen, Matt. What she does is important, and it’s not very easy. That patient you lost had contracted with her earlier to show up when he was dying.”

“What?”

“It’s a fact. Nobody knows how they do it, but a rhyena’v’rae can look at a person and know exactly when he’s going to die.”

“I don’t believe it. That’s impossible!”

“Well, you saw it happen today, didn’t you?” Matthew had no answer to that, and Gremekke went on. “What you do is you go to Teah and you ask her, “Can you be my rhyena’v’rae? “ If she says yes, that means that she’s agreeing that she’ll be physically present at your death.” Gremekke shook his head. “I don’t understand exactly what she does, though I’ve seen it, of course. It’s kind of a psychic process that helps people through the whole thing, gets them past their pain and fear.”

“Oh come on, Gremekke. To help people die—what’s that supposed to mean?”

Gremekke shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. I’ve certainly never tried dying before, with or without a rhyena’v’rae. But you’ve had patients who fight death, haven’t you? I think that many people do, because they don’t know what to expect and they’re just damned frightened. And even the ones who slip away quietly sometimes do it with a kind of despair; haven’t you noticed? But with her—it’s as if she’s taking them somewhere, and not just into the darkness. Somehow, it gives them the courage to go.”

“So it’s a sort of spiritual help, is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, not just that,” Gremekke said. “There’s some kind of a physical component to it, too. It’s strange: she holds them, and the ones that are in terrible pain sag in relief, as if they’ve just gotten a shot of morphine.

“It’s also a practical arrangement; she helps you plan your testament, like a lawyer would on Earth, and she’s in charge of carrying out any last wishes. She gets paid a flat fee, plus a percentage of the estate later.” He rubbed his chin. “Of course, having only one rhyena’v’rae left in the city means that there aren’t many people who have a rhyena’v’rae contract. There are plenty who wouldn’t consider it anyway.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Rather like all those people on Earth I hear about who tend to put off having their wills done. An attempt to ignore the inevitable.”

Matthew thought that over for a moment. “Does she ever say no?” he asked.

“Sometimes. Maybe it’s because she knows the person’s going to die far away, or someplace where she can’t be present, like a burning building, perhaps. Sometimes she refuses because she knows that she’s going to die first. But she never tells which it is.”

Matthew shook his head in amazement. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”

“Humph. I’m not surprised. I suppose it’s limited to Calypso. There’s an old story of a colonist named Stivan who had a near-death experience —drowning, I think. This was quite some time ago, not too long after contact was broken off with Earth. Anyway, when he came to, he related an experience that sounded similar to so many others: the tunnel, the bright light, and so forth, you know.

“But more than that, Stivan said that it taught him how to die, in a way which humans had forgotten. And that he could help people through the process of dying and teach it to others. He explained that it was a matter of perception. Maybe there’s something to that; apparently, he had a very high esper rating. He was the first rhyena’v’rae, and his work was developed by his disciples into the groundwork for the profession. Since Re-Contact has been so recent, I’m not surprised that you never heard about this in medical school.”

“I don’t know, Gremekke. This is all pretty hard to swallow.”

“Well, look at the report. If you still have it.”

“I will. I’ll go read it right now.”

Gremekke put his plate down on the counter. “One more thing,” he said. “Can you guess why she always wears that brownish color?”

Matthew frowned. “No. Why?”

“Practicality. It doesn’t show the blood so much.” He smiled and left, leaving Matthew staring at the crumb-dusted plate.

“Gremekke, we’re about out of iodine. Didn’t the apothecary deliver it this week?”

Gremekke glanced up from splinting a boy’s finger and looked around vaguely. “I thought I had it in the order—no, that’s right, I didn’t because there was another box under the green cabinets. Is that used up already?”

“That was quinine, not iodine.” Matthew shook the almost-empty bottle ruefully. “I’d better go to the apothecary’s and get some more to tide us over.”

Gremekke nodded. “It’s quiet enough now that I can spare you. Sorry about that, lad, but you’re right. We’ll need it.”

Matthew sighed. “We’re so spoiled on Earth. What I wouldn’t give for a sonic sterilizer.”

“Get used to it,” Gremekke grunted.

Matthew picked up his cloak, for the afternoon was chilly. At the door, he turned around for one thing more. “I might take just a little longer. There’s someone—something I have to do.”

Gremekke gave him a shrewd look. “Just so. By all means, take all the time you need.”

“Thanks.” Just as Matthew was swinging the door shut, he heard Gremekke call out after him: “She lives at the end of Fish Hook Street, beyond the piers by the shore.”

Matthew smiled as he set out toward Fish Hook Street. He’d stop at the apothecary’s on his way back.

Fish Hook Street was really only a narrow lane, backed by the pier houses where the fishermen stored their nets and gaffs. The street passage led Matthew in a curve around to the left and away from the other buildings as he neared the shore. Teah’s small home was built on a craggy terrace above the high-tide mark. The path that led to her door passed the moored fishing boats.

He hesitated at the threshold, but the door was ajar, which in the local parlance meant, “Come right in.” Accordingly, he pushed it open, removed his shoes, and entered Teah’s home.

She was kneeling on a tasseled ghoto, the Calypsan traditional kneeling pad used when visitors came to call. A middle-aged couple knelt on ghotos across from her, and a narrow table spread with papers stood between Teah and her guests. Teah glanced up and gave him a friendly nod and smile, but she continued speaking to the woman visitor.

“Well, give some thought to designating your heir to the partnership. Suppose you do that and come to see me again about the revision, sometime in the next seven-day or so?”

The couple nodded and arose. A few pleasantries were exchanged as Teah gathered up and handed over the papers, and then the couple took their leave, brushing quietly past Matthew and retrieving their shoes by the door before heading back down the path.

“Good afternoon, Rhyena’v’rae,” Matthew said a bit stiffly. “I am sorry if I was intruding.”

“No, no, we were just finishing up. My door is always open, Hev’rae Mateo,” she replied pleasantly, and Matthew wondered how she had known his name. “I am happy to see you. Would you care to join me for a walk along the beach?”

“Yes, I would.”

They walked down toward the water in silence. The path twisted and turned between large gray rocks, widening out at the line where the long, blowing beach grasses began. The sharp blades cut against their ankles, and the white sands shifted under their feet. At the bottom of the slope, they turned and began walking away from the wharves, keeping near the shore. Teah seemed content to let him speak first, and finally he did.

“Rhyena’v’rae, maybe you knew that I’m in the Peace Corps.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Before I came out here,” he continued, groping for words, “they told me in training that I would run into situations where I’d have to think twice about my assumptions—about what I think is right. At first I assumed they were just talking about medicine, but I know now it’s more than that. I talked with Hev’rae Gremekke and took the opportunity to learn something about what you do, and, well—I didn’t understand.”

She nodded. “And I regret the treatment you received from the others who were there. Let us agree to make a fresh start and think no more of what happened, Hev’rae. I think it speaks well of your dedication, that you don’t yield to Death without a fight.” She smiled up at him. “But sometimes a hev’rae must stop and remind himself that Death may also come as a friend.”

Matthew thought of Jokko, pleading to know the fate of his family. “Sometimes, maybe. But not always, I think,” he said.

“Not always.”

“Look, I thought I should come and talk—”

A shout behind them interrupted him. “Teah! Amo Teah!”

Teah turned around. A small boy was running toward them, holding something out. “Look what I have!”

She clapped her hands together, beaming like a little girl, and squatted down to examine the treasure as the boy ran up to join them. “What is it? Why, it’s a turtle! Where ever did you find it, Rano?”

“In the tide pool.” He was a fair, curly-headed child, with a generous sprinkling of freckles across his nose. He grinned up at Matthew and eagerly held out his prize for examination. “See, it’s a red-spotted turtle! Can I keep it, Amo Teah?”

“I know that you could take good care of it, Rano…”

The boy stuck out his chest, swelling with responsibility. “Of course I can!”

“Of course you can. But don’t you think that it should be released again?”

“But I found it! How could I let it go?” he asked plaintively.

“I know it’s very hard. Maybe it would help if you think that you’re letting it go back to the open sea because that’s where it’s happiest, out there with its family.”

“Well—” the boy pondered the question seriously. “If I put it back now, it could swim out with the next tide.”

She gave him a hug, unmindful of the wet turtle between them. He squirmed free, flashed another grin to show her that there were no hard feelings, and then ran back to the rocks where the tidal basins formed. Teah stood and called after him, “I’ll see you tonight.”

He stopped and turned toward her. “Don’t be late like last night!”

Teah laughed. “I promise you won’t have to wait for your supper this time.” She watched him go, a fond smile still on her face.

“A fine boy,” Matthew commented. “Your son?”

Her smile faded. “No. I regret to say I have no children.” Squinting against the setting sun, Matthew turned to watch the boy clamber up the huge boulders. Teah looked at Matthew and smiled again. “I suppose I am his second mother, in a way—that’s why he calls me Amo. Actually, I’m his aunt. His mother is my sister Briena, and she has to scrape a bit to make ends meet—she’s a widow. I’m afraid that sometimes she finds it difficult to find time for him.”

They walked slowly and talked some more. He told her a little about his assignment. “I never expected to leave Earth at all. I had just signed on with the Peace Corps when the news came that the Corps was going to be joining the Re-Contact project, helping with the reassimilation between Earth and Calypso. That changed everyone’s priorities in a hurry, so I was sent here instead of to my original assignment. The Corps named Gremekke as my sponsor mostly because he’s the senior hev’rae in the city, and they figured he’d have plenty of experience for me to draw upon. I’m expected to relieve him of some of his caseload, too. He never complains, but he’s getting up in years, and it’s too wearing for him to run the clinic by himself now.”

She listened politely, but he wondered how much of what he told her she already knew. He got the impression that she had known Gremekke for a long time. She probably knew all the healers in the city well. How did they feel about working with her?

“One thing,” he said, and stopped. She looked at him inquiringly. He rubbed his chin. “I don’t know if I can say this right. I’m still not exactly comfortable with the language, but, well, how can you possibly justify this? What you do, I mean?”

She cocked her head. “Justify?” Thoughtfully, she watched the sea-birds dip and mew in the distance. “You have an oath that you take when you become a hev’rae, don’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s called the Hippocratic Oath.”

“My profession has something similar, which also gives me ethical constraints. I never reveal when anyone’s time is, for example, even to the client. And I don’t allow myself to profit from any confidential information about estates or family matters. My first responsibility is to my clients and to their bereaved.”

Matthew sighed. “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I meant when somebody sees you coming, don’t they just, uh, give up? How can that be right?”

“It’s not something I cause. It’s what I see.” She pointed to a promontory ahead of them, jutting out into the sea. “Look, do you see that tree there, overhanging the shore?”

“Yes.”

“Do you see how the sand is eroding away from the roots, trickling down the hill into the water little by little? If you notice that, and if you know how much sand is lost every day, and how big the tree is and how much support it needs, you would have a good idea about when the tree will topple into the water. That’s not the same as taking an axe and cutting the tree down.”

He thought about it for a moment. “What if I hold the sea back with stones?”

“You could, I suppose. But the waves would eventually work them free.”

“Then I’d transplant the tree.”

She laughed. “Ah, you are stubborn, I see. But the promontory isn’t infinitely wide. And the tree, after all, must remain rooted in the sand. We are all mortal, Hev’rae.” She turned to face him again. “And the tree will fall, you see. You might perhaps delay the inevitable, but you can’t do anything to stop the sea.”

They walked along in silence for a few more moments. Finally, Matthew said, “Look, I don’t think I can accept what you’re saying.”

“No?”

“I mean, it would ruin me as a hev’rae if I believed that. I have a duty to my profession, and this—it’s as if you’re telling me I should just throw up my hands and let the sea wash in. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.”

She looked surprised. “Truly, I don’t ask that of you. There are other hev’raien in the city who feel as you do, you know. And yet I can still work with them, because each of us knows that we all want the same thing.”

“Oh?” he said, his tone politely doubting.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “We want to help our patients, our clients.”

“I suppose so. I mean, I can see how the legal arrangements you make and the counseling you do would be helpful.”

“But I should concern myself with only those affairs, perhaps, and stay out of your way?” she replied shrewdly. Matthew glanced at her, but her face looked amused, not angry. “I’m afraid that my duties to my profession will not allow you to have the one without the other, Hev’rae.” She made an enigmatic gesture. “We must simply agree that we disagree. It is sometimes so.”

Eventually, they arrived back at her home. “Well, thank you for talking with me anyway, Rhyena’v’rae,” Matthew said. “You’ve given me some things to think about.” It was the truth, he realized with some surprise.

“You have done that for me, also.” She plucked aside a strand of hair that the breeze was blowing in her eyes and turned to face him.

At her cool appraisal, he felt a faint chill. He noticed that her eyes had dilated, as if something had made her flinch.

“You’re seeing my death, aren’t you?”

She blinked, as if surprised by his bluntness, but her answer was equally frank. “Yes, I always do. Or I see my own.”

“I’m a hev’rae, so I’ve seen my share of dying.”

“This is different,” she said evenly.

“Of course.” He flushed. “Forgive me, I just meant to say that I don’t know how you can do it. I mean, how can you talk to people, knowing the exact second that they will cease to be?”

“It can be a difficult thing.” She gazed away, out over the water.

He thought about what it would be like to care about someone, maybe even love someone, knowing that. He suddenly found himself wondering what rhyena’v’raien did about that. Did they have lovers? Families?

Another thought occurred to him. “Tell me,” he asked, “Can you act as rhyena’v’rae for a Terran?”

“Perhaps. Are you asking for yourself, Hev’rae?”

He hesitated. “No. Not at this time.” He watched her face carefully; he didn’t want to offend her.

But she only nodded. “There is a time for everything, Hev’rae. Now is not always the right one.”

“Leave the autoclave to its own devices for one night, Mateo, m’boy. You and I are going out tonight to celebrate.”

Matthew straightened up from the pile of instruments he was sterilizing and peered at Gremekke through clouds of steam. “Celebrate? Celebrate what?”

“Why, your anniversary, you dolt. Tonight marks the start of your third year on Calypso!”

Matthew glanced at the wall calender, made of strips of cloth with colored beads attached representing the days and months, and he did some mental calculations. “I’m still thinking in terms of Earth time; I didn’t even realize it.” He banged down the lid of the autoclave and stripped off his greens. “You’re on.”

They closed up the dispensary and headed up the street which led over a hill to the public houses on Tanners Row. Gremekke stumped along, wheezing, with Matthew’s tactful hand on his arm to guide him around the puddles he normally would have splashed right through. “Fine night!” he exclaimed. “Wonderful night! Smell that sea breeze! That’s why I’d never move to one of the inland cities.”

Matthew could smell little but the fumes of the leatherworkers’ lye, mixed with the smell of dung, but he allowed that the air certainly cleared one’s head quickly.

“Absolutely. You certainly picked the right place to come to be a healer. Now, I’ll admit that I’ve wanted to visit Earth sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade my practice on Calypso for anything—plenty of opportunity for roll-up-the-sleeves hands-on experience.”

“I did do my residency in the ER at Los Angeles County General,” Matthew said wryly.

Gremekke abruptly came to a stop at the crest of the hill, panting, and Matthew almost plowed right into him.

“This is where I wanted to take you.” Gremekke indicated a nondescript door with an expansive wave of his arm. A wooden placard swinging above it read The River’s Edge. From the bottom of the placard hung a copper bell, the symbol of drinking establishments. “A good place for carousing. Let’s go in and buy a barrel of ale and two straws.”

Despite this recommendation, The River’s Edge proved to be no more than a friendly, somewhat sleepy neighborhood public house, with a few customers talking quietly among themselves. The room looked big enough to seat thirty people or so, although it held only about half that number at the moment. Bluish smoke from a few pipes drifted, coiling, below the low ceiling, dimming the light. The sweetish smell of the smokeweed mingled pleasantly with the odor of hops, frying onions, and fresh-cut reeds.

Gremekke led the way to a rush mat by the fireplace where they seated themselves on flat floor cushions and ordered the first pitcher of ale. “It’s your third year here, now,” he said, “and how long did you say you had practiced on Earth before signing on with the Peace Corps?”

“Five years, in Earth reckoning. I got a late start in the Corps.”

“Me, now, I’ve been practicing for forty-two years. Forty-two years! Think of it!” He took a deep swallow. “It’s downright terrifying.”

Matthew laughed.

“That’s better,” said Gremekke judiciously. “That’s the ticket! Tonight’s a night for loosening up.”

“And you think I need that?” asked Matthew, amused.

Gremekke snorted and shifted on his pillow, making the reeds crackle underneath him. “When you stepped off that ship, I don’t mind telling you that for the first day or two, I wondered if it would work out between you and me. Now, you may have been a hev’rae for a while at the time, but I thought you were as bad as the green ones fresh out of training.” He shook his head in mock consternation. “You were positively grim!”

Matthew grinned into his cup.

“Maybe it was just being in a new place and all. You seem to have gotten over it. Mind you, like I say, all hev’raien start out that way. I started out that way! I tell you, I was—” He broke off and looked over Matthew’s shoulder. “Look, there’s Teah.”

Matthew glanced over toward the doorway. Teah stood there, her eyes searching the room. Some of the patrons seated near the door saw her and stirred uneasily. The house owner saw her and scowled before disappearing again into the back kitchen.

“Teah!” Gremekke gestured her over with his cup, slopping a little over his fingers. “Come and join us, won’t you?”

She wove her way toward them through the mats, and Gremekke shifted his pillow over to make room for her. As she seated herself, Matthew reached for the ale pitcher, accidentally brushing her arm with his fingers. She recoiled, looking at him with such surprise that he mumbled, “Sorry,” wondering what social taboo he had unwittingly violated this time.

“Oh no, Mateo, I’m not offended,” she hastened to assure him. “I was only, well, startled. Most people avoid touching rhyena’v’raien.”

“Everybody sweats when a rhyena’v’rae walks through the door,” Gremekke observed, grinning.

“Except for you, old friend,” she smiled. “You’ve never been afraid of me.”

Gremekke chuckled and signaled for another pitcher of ale. “I usually see you walking everywhere around the city at all kinds of hours, lass, but I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

“A hev’rae is usually thankful for that,” she replied drily.

Gremekke, caught in the middle of a swallow, choked on his ale and then laughed again. “Too true. But Mateo and I are glad to see a friend tonight. We’re toasting the start of his third year on Calypso.”

“Congratulations, Mateo.” She filled the ale mug the server brought and took one swallow, then left it untouched. “You’ve been lucky to have a sponsor like Gremekke. He’s the best hev’rae in the city.”

Gremekke coughed and rumbled, “Well, now…” but Matthew could see that he was pleased.

“Haven’t I always told the truth?” Teah asked. “I should know. I haven’t been practicing as long as you, Gremekke, but I’ve been around awhile.”

“Gremekke was just telling me about when he started out,” Matthew said.

“Did he tell you about the time he delivered twins upside down?”

Matthew frowned, unsure that he had understood her syntax. “You mean a double breech delivery?”

“No.” A smile curled at the corner of her mouth. “I mean Gremekke was upside down, while doing the delivery.

“What?”

“That was about oh, nineteen, twenty years ago, I think. A pregnant woman fell through some rotted flooring in one of the warehouses on Sailmaker Street. The fall started her labor, and by the time someone heard her screams, she was so near her time that they didn’t even have a chance to dig her out. Someone got Gremekke, and they lowered him headfirst through the hole and held on to his legs while he delivered the babies. Two of them.”

“It wasn’t entirely upside down,” Gremekke corrected. “More like a forty-five-degree angle. Good thing, too—I would have blacked out, otherwise.”

“You should have seen him, Mateo, with his scissors tied to him, dangling from his wrist so that he wouldn’t lose them if he dropped them. He handed up the babies, and then they were able to pry the mother loose.”

“My God.”

“How many babies would you say you’ve delivered, Gremekke?” Teah asked.

“I don’t know. Thousands.” He laughed.

“And it hasn’t all been babies, either,” Teah went on. “This city has seen a couple of serious epidemics.”

Gremekke sighed. “The last one—it was a spring after a lot of flooding. Roads were impossible. A virus. One hundred and fifty died in a month.”

“You forget,” said Teah softly. “How many more would have died, if you had taken to the hills along with so many others?” She turned to Matthew. “I know. He set up a makeshift hospital compound extending out from his clinic and pooled his resources with Hev’rae Lenor and Hev’rae Mavo. He went without sleep for seventy-two hours.”

Gremekke was silent, staring at his ale.

“You’ve been a good hev’rae, Gremekke.”

There was a little pause. Then Gremekke said slowly, “You’ve been a lot of places, Teah, but I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen you in The River’s Edge before.”

“No, Gremekke. But you were here.”

Gremekke raised his eyes slowly to her, his face white. “This is it, then, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Gremekke. This is it.”

“Gremekke?” Matthew asked, puzzled. “What’s going on? Gremekke!” Gremekke made a convulsive movement, upsetting his ale, which spread in a brown pool, soaking into the mat. Matthew sat up straight in alarm as heads turned in their direction. Teah didn’t move.

“Felt… felt something… pop,” Gremekke forced out, his voice mildly surprised. “Lord, I’m so weak…” He slumped back against the wall. “What is it? It’s not a stroke?”

“It’s the tube beneath the heart, leading to the lower body,” Teah said calmly.

Matthew gasped. “An abdominal aneurism? The lower aorta burst? But he’ll bleed to death in minutes—” He scrambled up to his knees and shoved the drinking cups aside with a sweep of his arm. “Help me lift him. I’ve got to get him back to the clinic.”

But as he reached out to hoist Gremekke’s limp form, Teah’s hand on his wrist stopped him. “Wait—think, Mateo,” she said urgently. “I will not say that he dies because you fail to operate, or because you do. I can only tell you that whatever action you choose to take, his time has come. Given that, how will you choose to let Gremekke meet his end—under the knife? Or here, where he wants to be, with his friends?”

He stared at her in anguish. “I can’t do nothing!”

“Life comes to an end, Mateo. It must.” She withdrew her hand. “You must choose.”

He turned to Gremekke and gently put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. Gremekke’s eyes glazed over with pain and then closed, and in that instant Matthew made up his mind. “I’m not going to sit back and let a man die. Not this time.”

“Mateo—”

“Save it. I’m taking him back to the clinic.” Lifting the healer over his shoulder, Matthew struggled to his feet. The other patrons had gathered around, and he glared at them, wondering if anyone would try to stop him. “Somebody help me carry him.”

No one moved, although a few looked uncomfortably at Teah. She rose slowly, her gaze steadily meeting his. He wheeled and started for the door. “All right, then. Get out of my way.” He didn’t wait to see Teah follow.

The streets were still slick from the night’s early rain, and Gremekke got heavier with every step. Matthew’s mind raced as he tottered on: even if he had his kit with him, it wouldn’t do any good. Only immediate surgery could save Gremekke now. It was more than a kilometer to the clinic, and the gravity making it seem even longer, and besides, there wasn’t enough blood in stock to replace what he must have lost by now; there wasn’t enough time, not enough time, not enough time…

When he had gone about half of the distance, Matthew staggered and half fell against the corner of the building, his breath burning in his chest. He collapsed to the cobblestones, lowering Gremekke across his lap. Teah appeared silently at his side like a shadow and knelt beside them. Matthew raised Gremekke’s head, pushing the gray fringe of hair back. In the pale glow from a nearby unshuttered window, he could see how ashen the old man’s face looked. “Goddammit. Goddammit, Gremekke.”

The old hev’rae heard the plea in his voice and opened his eyes. “That’s… all right, boy… there isn’t enough time to get me back home. Teah promised long ago… she’d make sure… I’d… I’d be ready. She promised a good death for me.” He was having trouble breathing. “Rhyena’v’rae, please… take me into your arms.”

Teah put her arms around Gremekke and pulled him toward her, to lay his head in her lap as Matthew hastened to shift the healer’s feet. They settled him as comfortably as they could, and then Teah leaned over him. “Gremekke, what do you to need to say before you go?”

“Thank you… for telling me what it was… I always did… have a morbid curiosity to know… what would carry me off in the end. Impossible to do an autopsy on yourself.” His eyes looked over to Matthew. “And… thank you, boy. For everything.”

Teah waited and then said, “Is that all, Gremekke? Is there anything else?”

He sighed and closed his eyes. “Nnnno…”

Teah laid her hand on his forehead. “Then rest. You will soon know the answer to the question you have pondered for all these years. When you could not save your patients, and they died with their eyes open to something which only they saw, you always wondered, what was there on the other side? Now, Death is coming, but it won’t frighten you. It will be like all the times you have delivered children. A cord will be cut, but it will not hurt. It is the beginning of something new.”

She fell silent and remained with her eyes closed and her hand on Gremekke’s forehead, unmoving. Two minutes crawled by, and then four, as Matthew watched them, his eyes stinging.

Finally, Teah whispered, “There it is; do you see it? Death raises the Cloak to enfold you, and it will feel cool, like the shadows that comfort you in the heat of the noonday sun. Don’t be afraid… I am with you.”

Gremekke’s breath eased out once more as Teah leaned forward and kissed his forehead—and then it stopped. Matthew laid his head on the old man’s chest but heard nothing. He buried his face in the roughspun shirt. Just as he was wondering whether he would be able to control the sobs that struggled in his throat, he felt Teah’s hand, placed on his head like a benediction, and he gave way to his grief.

In accordance with the instructions of his testament, Gremekke’s body was cremated and the ashes scattered at sea. An old friend of Gremekke’s, Hev’rae Lenor, delivered the eulogy at the memorial service. Matthew spoke briefly, too, trying to describe what their work together had meant to him. Somehow, the words didn’t seem enough.

Afterwards he greeted many of the people who had attended the service. The various hev’raien spoke kindly to him and asked him about his plans. Others who had been Gremekke’s patients over the years shook Matthew’s hand and told him little stories, of something Gremekke had said or done for them once, of a bill discreetly overlooked, a baby’s life saved. He felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of all the people who had known Gremekke, who wanted to come to honor his passing.

The evening after the service Matthew spent going through the papers in Gremekke’s desk. Many of them having to do with the running of the clinic were already familiar to him. But there were others: correspondence, research notes, lists, and legal documents, including a copy of his testament which Teah had brought over earlier in the day. Matthew read over it carefully.

The first section dealt with the estate. Gremekke had left the clinic to Matthew, contingent upon Matthew’s decision to stay on Calypso and assume the practice. If Matthew decided not to stay, the assets of the clinic were to be sold, with part of the profit going to Matthew, part to a few other friends and colleagues, and the rest to charity. Teah’s fee was included, too.

He sat back and thought about it. Taking the practice over formally would mean leaving the Peace Corps, of course. After all, he had taken the assignment on Calypso with the understanding that it was only temporary. But things were different now, and he had to alter his preconceptions to match the change in his situation. Could he be happy making this world his permanent home?

He picked up the testament and read on through the second section, the contract between Gremekke and Teah: … to come to him when his time of death draws near, using the art of the rhyena’v’raien to ease and comfort… Matthew stopped and thoughtfully chewed a thumbnail. Teah had not come for any of his patients since that workman died two years ago. He realized now that he had been relieved that he hadn’t had to face the issue again, almost as if it allowed him to pretend that the whole thing didn’t matter.

And yet Gremekke had hired her himself. Why? Gremekke had devoted his life as a hev’rae to fighting off entropy in every way possible and yet—Matthew remembered the trust in Gremekke’s eyes when he finally turned to Teah at the very end. For all his faith in medicine, Gremekke had needed something from her that Matthew couldn’t give him.

His gaze fell on the modestly framed copy of the Hippocratic Oath that hung on the wall beside the desk. … I will follow that method of treatment, which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous… Into whatever houses I enter I will go into them for the benefit of the sick… And what of the dying, he wondered. What of the dead? What is my responsibility toward them? Does her work benefit them, even more than medicine can? Gremekke must have thought so. Is it possible that Teah is fulfilling this oath better than I am?

Someone was knocking. Matthew tried to ignore it because Gremekke was the hev’rae on call and should have been the one to get up and answer it. Then he remembered that Gremekke was dead.

He raised his head. He had fallen asleep at Gremekke’s desk, with his head resting on the piles of papers, because he hadn’t wanted to go to bed. How foolish. He got up and went to answer the door. It was Teah.

“Mateo?” She blinked in the light, pulling her cloak close against the rain.

“Teah,” he said, surprised. “I’d planned to come see you tomorrow, to thank you for all your help with the service and everything.” He held the door open for her, but she stayed where she was, shivering. Something about the way she looked at him seemed strange to Matthew, and another thought struck him: it was rather late at night for a sympathy call.

“What is it, Teah?” he asked, wondering if he was wrong.

He wasn’t. She looked at her feet. “It’s my nephew, Rano,” she said, her voice low.

“I’ll get my cloak.”

She led him to Briena’s house and told him to knock. He did so, and when he turned to speak to her again, she was gone. Before he could step away from the doorstep to go look for her, the door opened and a woman peered out at him.

“Yes?” she said suspiciously. She was probably Teah’s younger sister, he thought, but while Teah was slim and fine boned, this woman was gaunt, with hard lines around her mouth and rough, calloused hands.

“You are Briena?”

“Who wants to know?” she demanded coldly.

“Forgive me, I’m Hev’rae Mateo. Your sister Teah sent me to you, since your little boy is sick.”

“Teah did? She was here earlier—” She opened the door wider to allow him to step inside. He removed his shoes and followed her to one of the two small sleeping rooms.

Rano lay on a pallet, flushed and bright-eyed with fever and breathing hoarsely. He turned his head to look as Matthew sat down on the small chair at the side of the bed.

“Hello, Rano. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m a friend of your Amo Teah. I’m here to see if we can’t make you feel a bit more comfortable.” He pulled the light closer and examined the gray patches on the boy’s throat. It was catchthroat, similar to the old Terran diphtheria—and a bad case, from the looks of it.

“Has a hev’rae been to see him before now?”

Briena’s face twisted into a scowl and then crumpled into tears. “No— thought I could take care of it myself—couldn’t afford one anyway.”

“When did the patches first appear?”

“Yesterday night. It’s catchthroat, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He bit back an angry comment about her negligence. Accusing her wouldn’t do any good now. “Start boiling some water,” he ordered. “I’m going to rig a steam tent. He opened his kit and pulled out the antitoxin and a scalpel to break the seal.

They labored over Rano for hours, swabbing his throat every half hour and keeping the steam kettle boiling. Rano fought the treatments weakly at first. But as the night wore on, he stopped resisting, instead focusing his failing strength on fighting for the next breath through the strangling membranes. The steam-filled room grew oppressively hot. To Matthew’s tired brain, the shadows seemed alive, looming over the bed menacingly, watching and drawing nearer as each breath that Rano desperately sucked in grew weaker.

Matthew and Briena jumped at the knock at the outer door.

Their eyes met.

“Teah,” Matthew said in a low voice.

Briena stared at him in wild fear. “No,” she whispered, “No.”

He wearily got to his feet to let Teah in, understanding now that she had sent him because she had hoped against vain hope that he could prevent the inevitable.

He ushered her silently to the bedside. Briena retreated and pressed herself against a wall, staring at Teah with huge, horrified eyes. Teah, who kept her head averted from her sister, sat down on the bed, her face white and still. Matthew opened the sides of the makeshift steam tent and removed the kettle, and a pillar of steam rose, curling against the ceiling and mingling with the shadows.

“Rano?”

The boy plucked feebly at his covering, and Teah pressed her hand over his. “Rano? It’s Amo Teah.” He opened his eyes.

“Would you like me to cuddle with you, Rano?” He nodded faintly, and she pulled off the cover and took him into her arms, drawing him into her lap. He was arching his body, sucking painfully, and she shifted her hold on him slightly so that he could expand his rib cage and placed her hand on his brow. Matthew knew that children in the last stages of catchthroat convulsed in their panicked attempts to get air, and he was awed as Rano relaxed at Teah’s touch and lay quietly as she murmured in his ear. He knew, suddenly, that here was something that she could do for the boy that he couldn’t, in spite of all his training.

“Remember your turtle, Rano? He swam into the basin, where you picked him up. When you put him back, he was able to swim out when the tide came back in.”

She was rocking him gently, her cheek resting against his wet head. “I want you to close your eyes and pretend with me now, Rano. We’ll go down to the beach together, see? I’m holding your hand. Do you see all the shells that you love to collect, lying on the sand? You found a special one for me once, and I always keep it on my windowsill, so that I can see the sun shining on its pink insides.

“Now we’re climbing on the big rocks. It’s hard to get up there, but we boost each other over the difficult places. We’re going to go swim in the tidal pool.

“We get into the water, oh, so carefully, but it’s not too cold, because the sun has been warming the rocks all day. So we swim a little, floating on our bellies, and then we roll over onto our backs and look at the sky.

“The sun is setting low, and it’s time for the tide to go out. Can you feel it, pulling you? I’m still right here with you. The water pulls us away from the shore, away from the rocks, out to the deep, deep sea as the moon rises and the stars come out. The shore looks beautiful in the moonlight because we can see all the lights twinkling over the waves, but still the tide pulls us farther and farther out—out to where the fish jump and dance over the waves and where the turtles go.”

She paused, and Matthew saw a tear drop from her bowed head to fall on Rano’s sweat-streaked hair. She lifted a hand to brush at the place, but when she spoke again, her voice was as even and soothing as before. “I can’t go with you any farther now, Rano, but that’s all right. There is a friend coming toward you now who knows all the secret places under the sea that you’ve always wanted to explore. The friend is reaching out a hand for you, see? Let go of my hand now, Rano. Let go of my hand and go with your friend.”

Teah kissed the boy and tenderly eased his body back down on the bed. As she stood, swaying, Briena whispered hoarsely, “How could you do it, Teah? How could you lie to me?”

“I never lied to you, Briena.”

“You did! Every time you hugged him, played with him, as if he had all the time in the world, without ever letting me know that he wouldn’t even live to grow up.” Briena’s voice broke in a sob as she collapsed on the bed and gathered up her son’s body in her arms. She hugged him fiercely as she rocked back and forth, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I knew. That was enough. You know I couldn’t tell.”

“It was cruel!”

“No. No, Briena. It was kind. His time was short, yes. But neither you nor Rano had to know that. He lived out his days as happily as any boy could.” She stepped forward and placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “And that was because you were able to love him wholeheartedly, without any cloud of knowledge poisoning whatever time you had together.”

Briena twisted away from Teah’s touch. “Who are you to keep such a secret from me, his own mother?”

“Death keeps the secret from all of us,” Teah said coldly.

“Except you?” Briena’s voice rose hysterically. “Aren’t you my sister? Or are you only Death’s servant, bringing in the Shadow Cloak to steal my boy from me?” The last words ended with a wail, and she bent over the boy again, rocking, twisting the thin nightshirt until it tore. “Oh, my Rano, my baby…”

White-faced, Teah reached out her hand. Briena kept her face buried in Rano’s shoulders to muffle her racking sobs, and after a moment, Teah let her arm fall again. She rushed from the room without stopping to pick up her cloak, and they heard the door slam after her. Slowly, Matthew picked up his cloak and kit. He let himself out.

Matthew didn’t catch up with her until the very end of Fish Hook Street. The rain was still falling in a steady, drizzling stream. He fell into step with her silently as they climbed the path that led to her house.

Once inside, he paused to pull off his shoes as usual, but she walked to the center of the room to stand there, still dripping, as if she had intended to go someplace else but couldn’t remember where.

“Teah?”

“I broke my vow,” she said flatly.

“How, Teah?”

There was a pause, as if she was too numb to think of the reason. He could see the sharp profile of her cheekbones etched by the distant flickers of lightning, flashing through the window. “I didn’t stay to comfort the bereaved,” she said finally.

“You’re the bereaved,” he told her gently. “You loved him, too.”

“That doesn’t change my responsibility!” She began to shake.

“You’re shivering.” He went to fetch a towel and came over to press it to her hair and dry her shoulders. He felt the chill of her wet skin through the thin, soaked fabric of her dress. Wrapping the towel around her upper body, he pulled her close and put his arms around her.

She stiffened and tried to pull away. “Don’t.”

“Teah, let me—”

“No!” She wrenched herself free. “That’s not very professional behavior, Doctor,” she said through her teeth, using, to his astonishment, the Terran word.

He reddened. “Teah, I—”

“Don’t you understand?” she cried. “Don’t you know that I have never —I have never—” She turned blindly away from him.

“Never what?” He reached out to touch her shoulder. “Never what, Teah?”

“The oath promises the respect of all men and women if I follow its teachings. And oh, the Calypsans are so polite. They are all so grateful for the art and the rhyena’v’rae’s arms at death, but who would want to touch a rhyena‘v’rae? Who would want to be held by a woman in whose arms so many have died?” She stopped abruptly and took deep breaths, trying to control herself.

His heart ached in pity for her. “And that is why you have no children.”

“That’s only part of it. Briena was right. Every time I saw Rano, every time I touched him or heard his laugh, I knew when he would die. It was terrible enough as it was, but if he had been my own son, I couldn’t have borne it. I couldn’t!” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Once again, he took her in his arms and held her, and this time she let him. When they grew tired of standing, they eased themselves down onto the floor and lay there together with her head on his chest as she cried herself out.

They weren’t so very different after all, he decided, stroking her soft, damp hair. Teah had said it herself: both of them truly did want to help the people who came to them, trusting in their ability to ease the hurt. They both had made sacrifices: he had left his home world, and she had relinquished her hopes for a family. And it was the fact that they both took their responsibilities as seriously as they did that made their failures cut so deeply.

The only remedy is to keep learning, keep trying, he thought. I know that Teah tries, and as for me—. His thoughts hesitated. If what she does truly pushes back the boundaries of medicine, and I made a promise to do everything I can to benefit my patients, shouldn’t I learn this? Doesn’t my oath, in fact, require it?

“Teah?” he said finally.

She wiped her eyes. “What, Mateo?”

“Teah, teach me to be a lethe.”

She raised her head and strained to see his face in the darkness. “Do you mean it? Even after all I’ve said?”

“Yes. I want to stay on Calypso. What you do—I want to do it, too.”

“But you’re a hev’rae, Mateo. Your business is saving lives.”

“You said it yourself: all lives come to an end. Don’t you see? This way, I’d be working as both a hev’rae and rhyena’v’rae, and that way dying would be a natural part of living. On Earth, there are hospices where the people go when they wish to die in peace under a doctor’s care. I think that’s the closest thing that we have to what you do.”

“There’s so much to learn.”

“I know. But my question is, could I?”

“There’s something you’d have to understand,” she said slowly.

“What is it?”

“The way a rhyena’v’rae passes on the art. Much is learned in the way you learned to be a hev’rae: the master teaches the disciple the laws governing testaments and ways to counsel the kin. But passing on the art is something different.”

“How is it done?”

“The disciple holds the rhyena’v’rae and takes the Oath as the rhyena’v’rae dies, and the power of the art awakens in the disciple.”

“Is that how you got it?”

“Yes. Death is the catalyst that gives the disciple the power to understand the master’s perception—a perception passed down to us from our first master, Stivan.”

He was silent for a long time, thinking. “So it’s the same as when a client comes,” he said. “The disciple asks the master whether he or she can learn the art. And if the master says no, no questions are asked. But if the master says yes, then both know that the master will die first.”

“Yes.”

“Then—will you teach me the art, Teah?”

She said nothing for a long time. The rain stopped, and the light of the waning moon shone through a ragged hole in the clouds, falling softly through the window onto their faces. “I will say nothing tonight,” she said finally. “I must decide. Sleep now, Mateo.” He slept.

At the first glimmer of dawn, he stirred and reached for her. It took him a moment to realize that the space next to him was empty. Opening his eyes, he propped himself up on one elbow and looked around in the growing brightness. She stood at the window, a shawl drawn over her shoulders, looking out to sea.

“Teah?”

Her head tilted a fraction, but she didn’t turn toward him. “I’ve been thinking, Mateo.”

“Yes?”

“About the art, and whether I can give it to you,” she said slowly. “I have been wondering whether perhaps it is too much for me. Too much for any human to endure, really. It could be that I am the last, you know, and perhaps there should be no others to bear it.” Her hand dropped to trace the smooth edge of a shell on the windowsill which glinted in the first rays of the sun. He remembered she had said the night before that Rano had given it to her. “And then I think of how Death is a—presence for me,” she continued, her voice low and hesitant. “It always waits, with a calmness that has become almost a part of myself. I can try to ignore it, but I can never forget.”

She turned toward him and studied his face. “Do you truly want this, then?”

“I do. I want it more than anything.”

She nodded. Quietly, she went over to the wall, picked up three ghotos, and laid them on the floor in a triangle. She knelt down on one and held out her hand to him. “Come, then.”

Puzzled, he got up and came over to kneel beside her. “Who is the third ghoto for?”

“Shh. Take my hand.” As he covered her fingers with his, she went on gently, “The third ghoto is for Death, our mutual master, and the master of all mortal beings. If Death accepts you as my apprentice, then there is one death, and one death only that you will see now: mine. And when I am gone, and you take the Oath, you will then see your own death, as well as those of all other people.” She took a deep breath. “As your teacher, I must promise to teach you faithfully as I have been taught, how to counsel and comfort the dying and their kin. Will you promise in return to be a willing student, to listen and to open your heart to what I have to teach you?”

“I will.”

“Are you willing to be my rhyena’v’rae, to ease and comfort me when my time of death draws near?”

“I am willing.”

“And when my passage into shadows awakens the art of the rhyena’v’raien in you,” she said, her voice low, “will you then be willing to take the Oath—and bear the certain knowledge of the time of your own death?”

He drew a deep breath and held her gaze steadily. “I am willing.”

She turned to the third ghoto. “Take him then as Your own. Let him see my mortality.”

They waited in silence. As he listened to her quiet breathing beside him, he felt something else, hovering on the edges of his perception. Holding his breath, he tried to concentrate as waves of dizziness slowly washed into darkness. It felt like a tangible cool twilight, like an impossibly fine veil eddying toward him on unseen currents. He recoiled, but at the last instant it swerved, dropping weightlessly over Teah instead.

With some newly awakened sense, he felt it coil and tighten languorously around her like the arms of a lover, sinking into her flesh. His hand shook in hers as he looked at her and knew. From this day forward, every time he saw her, he would see her death, hovering before him. Even as he felt her fingers pulsing with warm blood, he could anticipate the feeling of her spirit slipping away. He could see himself holding her, weeping, struggling to ease the pain and smooth her passage into shadows. He knew then how dear she would become to him, and that there would be nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could do to turn it away. For the first time, he understood the exquisite pain of the rhyena’v’raien—and with it, all their power.

Teah’s gaze met his with an expression of pity, and he saw his own pain mirrored there. “I know. Believe me, Mateo, I know. I saw it, too, the day I bound myself to my own master.” She pressed his fingers with hers. “Do you understand how much I need you now? You see, without you as my apprentice, I would be alone when my time comes, with no one to ease me. Will you do that for me?”

“Yes.” He took a ragged breath and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yes, Teah, I will.”

She smiled. “It is best to begin at once, then. You will have much to learn.”