“That’s what got me into all of this,” Fritz said. “Not wanting to be alone.”
“Like I said, we all make mistakes. Looking for someone to share your time with wasn’t a mistake, but the choice of person was. And now you’ve learned from it, and you’ll do better next time.” Prince Altan paused, sat back, put a hand on Fritz’s shoulder. This time, the touch didn’t surprise Fritz. “Let’s make another deal. A better one.”
“No magic involved?”
“No magic.” The prince smiled. “I don’t have anyone in Greymist Fair. I’d like to go home eventually, but I’ll be here at least through winter. I could use a friend.”
Fritz thought at first it was just a gesture. A consolation, the kind that could be bestowed by the more beautiful, the more fortunate, on the less. But then he remembered the riddle he’d answered before he’d wished for Hans to be king.Some call him ugly, some call him annoying, all call him friendless. He doesn’t even realize. Who is he?
“Your riddles,” Fritz said, “Were you the one who determined if the answer was right, or did the magic do that?”
“No,” said the prince. “I decided.”
Fritz nodded. “I could use a friend, too.”
Doctor Death
One
One day a man met Death on the road. The man was accompanied by his twelve children; Death was alone, as they often were. The man had never seen Death before, but Death was recognizable to anyone, and the man was instantly afraid.
“Please,” said the man, “I cannot die yet; I have twelve children to care for, you see, and to take me would be to kill them as well. You cannot be so cruel as to kill twelve children before they’ve had a chance to live.”
“I do not want to kill you,” said Death. “I am lonely and looking for companionship. Would you be willing to part with one of your children? You have so many.”
The man quailed, and his children quailed behind him. “I could not bear to let you kill even one. They are children, they aremychildren, and I love them all dearly.”
“I will not kill the child,” Death said, pleading now. “If the dead could be my companions, I would never be lonely. The child will live and will stay by my side always. They will be well cared for,educated, and will travel to see the world. I will give the child more than you ever could, and they will never know hunger or disease. Will you give one of your children such a wonderful life?”
The man, hearing this, did not find it to be such a horrible proposition after all. He had trouble providing for his twelve children, even now that the oldest of them were able to work, and there was always the threat of a deadly illness or starvation. Life as a companion of Death had to be better than no life at all.
“I will give you my youngest,” said the man, “if you swear to me that no harm will come to him.”
“I swear,” said Death, solemn and truthful. “And you will not see me again until the day your life is to end.”
And so the man relinquished his youngest child, an infant in a tight-wrapped bundle, into the hands of Death. Death, taking the small, warm thing, cradled the sleeping boy closely and smiled down on him. From a pocket, Death drew out a sprig of yellow linden blooms and tucked it into the child’s blanket.
“His name is Luther,” said the man.
Death nodded once, then wrapped the boy in the shadowy folds of their cloak and disappeared.
Two
Luther grew up without a mother or a father. Death taught him the ways of the world, and that was enough. He attended schools in the world’s greatest cities, filled his mind with the knowledge of people and places his eleven siblings—of whom he had no knowledge, because Death did not find it pertinent—could not imagine. When he had questions, he asked Death. When he needed help, he went to Death. He could not imagine his life without Death in it.
As a young boy he had big hands and feet, and his body hardly seemed to be able to keep up to its own growth. He had straw-like hair he kept cut short or pushed back because he didn’t like the feeling of it over his ears or in his eyes. His eyes were pale as slush, and when he caught sight of himself in the mirror, he sometimes jumped at the piercing stare of his own reflection. He dressed in black because Death dressed in black.
He grew into his hands and feet. As he passed into adulthood, he became tall and stern looking, and he found most peoplelistened when he spoke, which wasn’t often. Death prompted him to pursue medicine in his studies so that they could spend more time together, and Luther took it up with gusto. As soon as he completed his schooling, he began his rounds from one village to the next, from city to city, country to country. He enjoyed diagnosing illnesses in people and righting them. He liked making others feel better, giving them hope when they thought all was lost. But soon into his career he realized what his close link to Death truly meant in his practice, and it changed the way he viewed everything.
When a patient was going to die, Death appeared at the foot of their sickbed. Only Luther could see Death, and Death would not speak to him at these times. It was a moment they shared, a moment only they understood. Death was here to take. Luther had to let go.
He could not tell his patients this, so he went through the motions of trying to save them, knowing it was in vain.
Soon, word got ahead of him. When Luther visited, you could discover if you were going to die if you could catch his expression right as he entered the room, when he looked to the end of your bed. The doctor couldseedeath in the room, the rumors claimed, as some unearthly manifestation, and his stoic face would break into momentary sadness. So that waswhat they began to call him: Doctor Death.
Doctor Death knew who could be saved and who could not. Patients began outright asking him if death stood at the foot of their beds, and the doctor began answering. Some accepted this sentence and passed into Death’s hands willingly. Others demanded the doctor do whatever he could to save them. He would perform every treatment at his disposal, which he knew would not save them, and he never mentioned to anyone the one thing he knewwouldsave them.
On his person he carried the sprig from a linden tree, with its little yellow flowers, that had been alive and in bloom since he was a child. Death had told him to keep it with him at all times because linden was the guardian of life, and even Death could not break its power. The doctor knew if he bestowed this sprig on a person marked by Death, he could save them. But he never did. All people come to Death eventually; that was the way of things. But if the doctor remained alive, he could at least help those who were not yet marked.
