Died at Cadder Fen, the practitioner, aged eighty-four. Of the parish forty-one years. Parish register, Cadder Fen
It was the chest in the end, which she had known it would be since she was seventy-eight and had told nobody except him and Pell, and Pell only because Pell was going to have to manage it.
It went slowly and then, in the last week, not slowly.
Pell was thirty-nine by then and had been in that house eleven years and was better with her hands than Su'inn had ever been, which Su'inn had said out loud to her on three separate occasions and had been called a liar for all three. She came twice a day in the last fortnight and did the ease and did not fuss, and on the last afternoon Su'inn told her to go home, and Pell stood in the doorway for a moment and then went, because she had been taught by a woman who meant what she said.
The fire had been built up badly. It was always built up badly. Nobody in forty-one years had ever built up that fire correctly except Bircher, who had been dead for thirty-nine of them.
The light went about six.
"Where will you go next?"
I feel a host is near, a man. His time is coming soon.
"I was not aware you can sense when death comes to those around you."
I sense death everywhere, even here with us.
"With us."
I wish you could come with me.
She laughed, which was not a good idea and which she did anyway.
"And do what? Three voices instead of two? That is a party I want nothing of."
I do not know how it works. What you and I have, that is not natural.
"None of this is natural."
No. I suppose not.
The fire moved. She was breathing slower and deeper now and had been for about an hour, and she had spent forty-one years listening to other people do it and knew exactly what it was, and had decided some weeks ago that she was not going to be frightened by her own professional knowledge at the very end.
"Will this hurt?"
For you, no.
"That implies it will be painful for you."
Every time I lose a host, I am ripped from the body. There is no word for it. I have looked in nine languages.
"So you stayed all these years to avoid the pain?"
No. I stayed to be with you.
She lay in the chair.
She was weaker now and the words were costing more, and she spent one of them on nothing at all, and then said:
"Will you remember me? Or will I be merged in with the rest, forgotten into blend."
Su'inn. You will never be forgotten.
"I do not believe you."
I suppose you will have to accept that on faith.
"I hate you, you know that?"
I do.
The room was very dark. Somebody had not lit the lamp and it was going to stay unlit, and she found she did not mind, and that she had a great deal of practice at rooms with nobody in them but the two of them.
"I am scared."
I will remain with you until you cross.
"Will you ever be able to cross?"
I do not know. Someday the gods may show mercy on me.
"I shall wait for you there. Do not be long."
I thought you hated me?
"I do not hate you that much," she said.
I will miss you, Su'inn Ulmat.
"Do not be long," she said. "Thank you, my friend."