Garend Loth, son of a carpenter, was dying by stages. He called
the family
together, in the small room at the top of the house, beneath the
leaky roof
and flaking plaster, and told them what the doctor had said that
hot May
afternoon.
His wife cried. His sons, ten and fourteen, were quiet, downcast.
Genther, the older, put his arm around hi through it the blue sky
darkened into
evening.
The birdsong was clear, and from time to time a sparrow sat on
the swaying
branch that Garend watched from his bed.
Soon it was night, and the stars. The street outside was quiet,
as it would
stay for the three months it took for him to die. Tradition, the
soul of
the village, requested that, as it requested he make his peace
with his
ancestors and descendants, through all time and all place.
Towards midnight, Genther brought in the village's church and
left it,
silently, on the bedside table. Garend smiled weakly; his
meditations
disturbed. His was the good fortune to die knowingly, the when
and where
decided and imperturbable, and there were obligations.
It started in the morning, when the first villager came into the
room.
She was the daughter of a farmer and like her father, sturdy,
quick-witted,
plain, happy. Today, though, she was worried. It was a common
problem,
and Garend would have given her the same answer should she have
asked him
at another time.
That she wouldn't have done so wasn't important, and he took care
to open the
church, take out the cool satin metal egg from within and hold it
before giving
her his reply. She left, prepared to tell her parents, fortified
by the sure
and certain knowledge.
He looked at this bringer of truth in his hands closely,
curiously, before
putting it back in the cotton-lined dark red wood church. The
dark metal was
laced with a thousand weaving lines, barely perceptible, the
shapes they
cast nothing more than hints. He wasn't sure he believed in the
explanations
of faith, but he was sure, after seeing the doubt and worry lift
from the
farm girl, that it worked. No matter how.
During the months that followed, the drab upstairs room was
transformed. Every
visitor had brought some small token, from the wooden bowl of
that first
meeting to a beautiful metal and enamel sculpture from the
offworld artist who
had been living in the village for some ten years. The walls were
freshly
papered, the ceiling pale-blue and dry as a palace, and he had
two weeks to
live.
He had a small supply of tablets, although he knew how much they
cost the
village and tried not to use them. More often, now, he had to
take one to
sleep; this previous night had needed two. The stream of people
had lessened,
the small problems had been dealt with and those who remained
were those
who needed him most.
The routine was the same, and he drew much comfort for the ritual
of taking
the egg, holding it and letting his mind clear before pronouncing
his verdict.
He was intrigued and amused by some of the revelations, horrified
and
disgusted by others. Unlike the priests of the city, he would
have no time to
grow tired and cynical, and he would bring the hearten thoughts
of his people
to their gods much sooner. The burden of confessor, the
loneliness of his
rising sea of personal pain, was bearable towards the end only by
the
knowledge that dissipation was close, and so he came to terms
with death.
On that last day, he was alone, the final gift of departing
tradition.
The warm September air, the scudding clouds, the scent of the
morning's
hay, were all he would take from the day. He no longer needed the
medication,
he had learned to ignore his traitor body. Although there was no
writ to guide
him now, he knew what to do.
Taking the egg, he clasped his hands, as if in prayer, around the
smooth
faintly scored surface. He lay back, closed his eyes, felt as if
he were
floating on the river. In his hands, he could no longer feel the
shape, nor
the pressure of his interlaced fingers on each other.
Now the other sensations of the world were fading. Yet his mind
was clear,
and again he sensed the egg. It grew closer, as once he had
lifted it to
see the faint etched shapes that whispered of the past, but now
it was
more definite, almost tangible. He felt lifted, cradled, awake;
the racing
thoughts and memories of all his days reverently taken from him
as the
first picture of a child is treasured by its parents, and for
this he was
grateful.
It had one final gift to impart. With infinite care, it entered
his soul,
taking over the burden of life from the tired, failed body, and
sang it to
the stars.
(c) rg