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 replie
d 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?”
Full Spectrum 3 - [Anthology] Page 17
