"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 hoa.r.s.ely. He turned his head to look as Matthew sat down on the small chair at the side of the bed.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 ant.i.toxin 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 sh.o.r.e, away from the rocks, out to the deep, deep sea as the moon rises and the stars come out. The sh.o.r.e 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 hoa.r.s.ely, "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 m.u.f.fle 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 pa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.sage 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?"