Years of frustration had transformed Najat into a brooding, cold man. In public, it was rare to witness even a squint of emotion on his face. In private, if he was alone, he sometimes let slip a squint or two.
The love of his life was in childbirth, and the child was not his.
Najat stayed away, retreating into the solitude of his quarters. He sweated and paced, as any father would. He grimaced and cursed, as a father would not. He was not concerned with the child, of course. His hands burned red from wringing out his concern for her. A second pregnancy was dangerous, for any woman—Najat’s own mother had died because she bore a second child.
Najat came to a wall and stopped pacing. He could have Felt Asta from where he stood, if he didn’t respect her wish for some physical and mental distance between them. He didn’t respect that wish, actually, but he respected her. He loved her. Najat rested his forehead against the wall as terror roared across his nerves. He had secretly observed her two days before, and her pale, wan appearance had frightened him.
Najat moved to a window facing the direction of Asta, and peered out into nothing. The temple complex lay dark and quiet under the poor light of the stars. He continued to stand there until he became agitated beyond the point of obedience. He was perfectly within his rights to monitor her wellbeing.
Suddenly resolute, Najat seated himself in preparation to reach out to her. He straightened his spine…calmed his breathing…cleared his thoughts…and then immediately sensed someone approach the entrance to his quarters.
He stood up again, listening. Seconds later, the bell chimed at the door, augmented by a hesitant knock.
Najat had sent his attendants away, so there was no one to answer for him. He stumbled slightly as he walked through the front room, and his fingers slipped at the locks. He knew who stood on the other side. For the second time in his life, Najat opened his door to the midwife’s son.
While the boy stood doubled over, catching his breath, Najat had time to slip on a mask of outward composure. Had she died? No, he would have Felt it, he was sure. But why would the midwife’s son rush all this way to tell him that the child had been born? Najat found himself flushed with annoyance.
“Mathin!” Najat said in his great booming voice, causing the boy to snap to attention, chest still heaving.
“Mahasagi,” Mathin gasped, flashing his hands in a quick mudra of respect. “Come with me!”
Incomprehension prevented Najat from moving. “To…the birthing house?”
“Yes, please hurry!”
“Your ama—”
“No, it’s Gampo-Saati! She’s asking for you. Ama said it’s alright!”
Asta! Najat lost his focus on the boy’s face. He did not expect a summons from her, even with all of the reasons—some hoped for and some dreaded—that she might. And why did she ask for him via Mathin when she could have just—
“Saat, please!” Mathin regained Najat’s attention. “You should hurry. She isn’t well.”
Such news caused all caution to evaporate. Of course she wasn’t well! Najat leapt past the boy, sprinted across the foyer, and thudded down the switchback stairs before he remembered that a hint of composure might be necessary.
He didn’t know Mathin was following close behind, and the boy had to pull several maneuvers to avoid running into Najat’s backside as the man halted at the bottom of the stairs. Mathin skirted past him and led the way outside, pointing down the lamplit lane in the direction he had come. “Past Medical Arts, turn right—it’s the annex across the lane. Someone will be waiting!”
Najat already knew the location. He stripped off his robes and threw them to the boy, then ran in a dignified manner toward the lane in his loincloth. The lane was a slim canal that connected most parts of the temple complex. Flat stones paved each side of the water for those who preferred to walk. For the Mahasagi, swimming was faster. Without slowing down at the edge, Najat executed a neat side dive into the lane and took off with smooth, powerful strokes toward the Medical Arts building.
The night-cooled water did not provide comfort. Najat berated himself for staying so far from her. It was a fair distance to the Medical Arts building—the boy could run faster than swim, but still, it must have taken precious time to reach Najat’s quarters. Najat kicked harder, trying to redeem time, trying to redeem everything. His webbed hands sheared huge arcs through the water. He cut under one footbridge, then a second, as the north face of the temple loomed by on his left, too slowly. Then—finally—the greenery that fringed the walls of the Medical Arts building began flashing by on his right. Another footbridge. The Mahasagi was known for his remarkable aquatic speed, but tonight it felt like he was crawling through sand.
Lamplight illuminated an intersection in the lane. Najat struggled to clear his mind as he took the right turn with a smooth sidestroke. An archway rose up ahead of him, part of an elevated walk that connected the Medical Arts building to its satellites. In the expanded lamplight under the arch, an attendant leaned out over the water, watching for him. Najat slowed his stroke to convey an appearance of calm. No one knew of his feelings for Asta. Any displays of emotion must be kept in the acceptable realm of a man’s concern for his brother’s wife.
The attendant—one of Maore’s—stepped back as Najat pulled himself out of the water. “Mahasagi,” she said, as his shadow fell across her face. Her mudra was hampered by the clean robes she held in her arms. The towering figure and stern demeanor of Najat Gampoban had the unintended effect of intimidating those who saw him for the first time. Even standing there in his loincloth, shaking excess water from his long limbs, he exuded a certain dignity unsurpassed by other men.
Without waiting for directions from the attendant, Najat opened his mind and located Asta within the walls of the building. The attendant found herself trotting after him as he headed for the nearest entrance.
“Oh! Saat…!” She had to tug at his arm to get his attention. Najat grunted at the reminder, taking the robes from her and pulling them on as he continued into the building. It would not do for the Mahasagi to arrive in Maore’s domain wearing only his underwear.
Using Asta’s waning energy as a beacon, he chose the correct corridor and hastened to the room he Felt she was in. Maore herself met him at the door. The midwife bowed and lifted her hands in the mudra of respect as he entered the damp chamber. Each of the attendants in the room briefly stopped her work to face him and echo the midwife’s gesture.
“Come.” Maore gestured for him to follow her around the edge of the circular birthing pool. The strange pink tint of the water caught Najat’s attention, and as they neared the opposite side he saw a wet trail leading from the tiled edge of the pool, a trail that graduated from diluted pink to viscous red as it met the foot of the low couch where Asta lay.
They had to step over the trail to reach Asta’s side. Two women who had been hovering over the bed moved back as Najat approached. Even Maore remained a few feet behind as he knelt at Asta’s shoulder.
Asta’s eyes met his with unexpected clarity. Najat recognized the brightness in those eyes and his heart jumped—Asta was dying. Every muscle and nerve in his body strained to keep his face relaxed and his demeanor calm. He wanted to scream at the sight of her. Her hardening, cracked skin, the fluid at her nose and mouth, her paralyzed limbs—many others had died beneath his hand, yet he could not bear watching it happen to her. He permitted himself a gentle touch at her brow, but then his hand trembled so tellingly that he had to withdraw it.
Najat broke contact with those shining gray eyes and abruptly stood, disregarding a meek sound of protest from Asta. He turned to look at Maore. The plump, usually cheerful midwife shook her head, moving in to adjust the blanket that covered Asta’s lower half. “We tried…” she said, indicating a dark patch of blood that saturated most of the fabric. The patch was still spreading.
Hearing Najat’s intake of breath, Maore cut him off, “We tried. We sent for a doctor, but she put him to sleep before he could get here. She won’t let anyone help. She won’t even let Amala Tebbe come.” Maore lowered her voice. “Talk to her. She asked for you. I think…she wants you to…”
“Mm,” Najat rumbled, to indicate he understood. Yet—had Asta really given up? Why wouldn’t she accept those who might save her? He couldn’t save her—he could only guide her, at the time death.
She was certainly dying. He could Feel that excruciatingly well from where he stood. Instinct took over, all feelings shoved aside. In front of Maore, Najat must behave as if he had no other reason to be here.
He knelt beside Asta again. This time, her searching eyes did not meet his directly. He knew he couldn’t talk to her as the midwife had suggested, because Asta’s senses were now dissolving one by one. She could no longer hear him. Her sight was failing, and she could not taste or smell. By this time her body would be numb, unable to feel his reassuring touch at her arm.
As the Mahasagi, Najat was intimately familiar with each stage of the dying process. He prepared to do for Asta what he had done for so many others. He would assist her consciousness as it transferred from her body, to make sure she was in a state of peace. The Mahasagi was there to purify the mind and spirit as the body died.
Najat Gampoban was a disciplined master of his craft, no matter that he had become a troubled soul. He was capable of shielding his own dark corners from the increased clairvoyance of the dying. Only those who had passed on knew of the warm, clear light that resided at the very core of the Mahasagi’s being.
Now, with eyes and knees on the wet tiles, Najat tucked his own pain away and put his heart into summoning that light for his beloved Asta.
As Najat gingerly opened a line to her, preparing to merge his awareness with hers, he sensed that this was not the only reason she had summoned him to her deathbed. Her bloodless lips could no longer speak, but she had something to tell him. He Felt her waiting for him.
A sudden, intuitive urge caused him to hesitate. “Wait,” he whispered, even as he felt himself sliding into a trance that was not his own. Asta’s process of dying had accelerated, and it was pulling him in.
Maore stood a few paces from the bed, skeptically checking Najat’s technique. His posture towards Asta had such a tenderness to it that Maore chided herself—after all, Najat Gampoban had done this countless times. Deciding that he must have things under control, the midwife finally stepped back to let the Mahasagi do his work.
A flash of color caught the corner of Maore’s eye. She turned to see her son standing in the doorway, with the wadded mass of Najat’s traditional blue robes slung over one shoulder. The boy watched the scene across the birthing pool, mesmerized. As a mother determined to shield her child from the reality of death, Maore leapt around the pool to plant her girth between Mathin and his view of the room.
“Thank you, dear, thank you.” She patted his flushed cheek and took the clothes he carried for Najat. Mathin tried to sneak another peek around his mother’s wide hip, but she flicked open the robes, deftly blocking her son’s view as she shook wrinkles from the heavy fabric. She used the wide cloth to shepherd Mathin into the corridor. “Now, it’s getting late—”
“But how is she?” Mathin looked up at Maore. His beautifully concerned eyes put a lump in the midwife’s throat. The boy had planted himself directly outside the door from the moment he found out that his cherished auntie was in labor. It was too difficult to tell him the truth.
“We won’t really know until the morning,” she lied. “It’s a good thing you brought the Mahasagi. He can help her.” Maore had sent the boy on the errand just to give him something meaningful to do. Now she propelled him away from the birthing room with a stern hand on his shoulder. “Go back to the house. Get some sleep, kuma-la.”
Mathin yawned hugely at the suggestion. Yet he could not leave things so easily. “What about her baby? Is he going to be okay?” Mathin had wanted to see the baby, at least.
His mother turned back to the birthing room. “Get some sleep,” she repeated. “I’ll see you in the morning.” To prevent further argument, she closed the door behind her.
Her son’s question was a reminder—there was a baby to tend to. After carefully hanging Najat’s clothes on a wall hook near the door, Maore stole around the opposite side of the pool, glancing at the couch on her way. The brittle form of Asta lay immobile on the wet cushions as the lithe form of the Mahasagi knelt unmoving beside her. Creased effort on Asta’s face represented a struggle. No woman could go peacefully knowing she must leave behind a newborn.
Maore’s eldest attendant waited in a far corner of the humid room, holding the cleaned and swaddled baby. The midwife approached, swallowing hard against the tragic scene. The attendant was weeping.
“Shush, shush,” Maore chided the woman, taking the child from her. The baby was content, with open, calm eyes. Swaddled as he was, he looked healthy and well-formed. Each tiny hand displayed five tiny webbed fingers, all properly developed. He was a good weight and length. His facial features were as well-proportioned as an infant’s features could be. Maore marveled as the child cooed at her.
Maore’s attendant wiped the tears away and put on a more professional face. Maore was gratified. They had to plan what to do with the child, and she needed her women to have their wits about them. She was about to give instructions to her attendant when the woman suddenly jumped and let out a teeny gasp, staring past Maore’s shoulder. The midwife turned around to see what had startled her attendant, and almost dropped the child.
Najat Gampoban stood behind them.
The midwife reflexively clutched the baby more securely to her chest. There was a strange look in Najat’s brown eyes as he stared toward some vague area between Maore’s face and the bundle in her arms. She wasn’t sure if she should speak to him—he seemed to still be in a trance. He took a step closer, prompting her to blurt out, “Mahasagi?”
Najat finally spoke. “The child…”
“Mahasagi?” the midwife repeated, trying to gain his attention. Why had he left Asta’s side? Had Gampo-Saati passed on? Najat continued to walk toward the confused Maore. Candlelight caught a sheen of perspiration across the dark bronze dome of his shaved head.
Suddenly Najat’s eyes snapped to catch Maore’s. “Asta must see the child. She must see the child before she goes.” He spoke clearly, his deep voice commanding. Apparently Asta was still alive.
“But—the baby is…is…” There was a reason Maore had not already shown the child to his mother. “Look,” she told Najat, lifting the cloth that covered the newborn’s lower half. She cocked her arm to show the Mahasagi what she had trouble articulating.
One massive hand closed firmly around the midwife’s upper arm. Najat pulled her forward to get a closer look at the child. Normally fearless, Maore gulped as the towering Mahasagi’s breath fanned her forehead. Her nearest attendant scurried backwards into the shadows. Najat ignored their reactions to his peculiar behavior as he inspected the naked child. The baby’s dark legs, so similar in color to Najat’s own skin, kicked in healthy reaction to the sudden draft where Maore held the cloth away.
“Mm,” Najat grunted, and his grip on Maore’s arm tightened. His face darkened as the reason for her concern became clear. Finally he released her arm and straightened his spine, holding her eyes with his. “She must see him, regardless. Cover that part.”
Najat stepped aside and motioned for Maore to precede him toward the couch where Asta lay. His iron stare crushed any chance of rebellion. Tucking the swaddling cloth securely around the baby’s legs and abdomen, the midwife obeyed.
The blanched form of Asta appeared as a corpse. Her stiff hands lay red on the blood-soaked blanket. Her cold arms lay white against the dark, wet cushions. Asta’s eyes were open to the ceiling, but Maore knew that the woman could not see. The young mother was already dead.
“No,” Najat rumbled, “She is still here.” He clutched Maore’s bruised arm again, dragging her the last few steps to Asta. The midwife’s bolder attendants flinched at Najat’s rough handling of their mistress. Maore saw their protective stance and shook her head at them, willing them to step back. The young women submitted, but their watchful eyes remained to comfort her.
Prodded by the Mahasagi, the midwife leaned toward Asta’s body. It was awkward, trying to show the child to an unresponsive, prone figure. Maore tilted the bundle as well as she could without spilling the baby onto his mother’s frigid chest.
“Here.” Najat’s voice sounded impatient in her ear. He touched Maore’s arm again, but this time a gentle warmth spread from his fingers. Alarmed, the midwife felt the muscles across her shoulders and chest relax. Her arms went limp under the weight of the child.
The Mahasagi reached in and pulled the bundle from Maore’s weakened grip. “Stay back!” he said to Maore’s angry attendants. The midwife watched helplessly as Najat knelt beside Asta again, placing soft fingers on the seemingly deceased woman’s brow. His other long arm cradled the whimpering baby, who began to fuss and kick.
“Shhh!” he shot at the women around him. No one moved. Bowing his head, he slid back into his silent dialogue with Asta. After a few moments, even the newborn fell quiet. Maore’s strength returned, but she felt a strange fog settling in her head. She stepped closer to the couch, trying to understand what was happening.
Suddenly, amazingly, Asta’s body moved. One hand slid in the blood at her hip as her shoulders began to tremble. Her saliva-encrusted mouth cracked open. Asta let out a loud and raspy moan, freezing the hearts of the women surrounding her.
Najat pulled away and stood up, towering over the women again. “Assist her! She wants to sit up!”
Incredulous, the women hesitated. Finally, Maore herself hurried forward when Asta’s whole body began to convulse. The Mahasagi stepped back and enveloped the newborn securely with both arms as Maore’s attendants muscled past him to help their mistress.
Asta’s eyes came alive again, rolling madly as she raggedly gasped for air. The women struggled to get their arms under her slippery, heaving shoulders.
“Support her head!” Maore directed them. Slowly they lifted Asta’s dripping torso from the soggy couch. “Cover her back!” Asta was halfway sitting now, trembling at the verge of consciousness as the women supported her back with strong arms and dry blankets. Maore struggled to hold down Asta’s twitching arms. It would still be difficult to show her the baby this way.
Asta’s head lolled forward. Maore lifted one arm to shove Asta’s head back up by the chin and hold it in place. “Asta…Asta!” Maore tried to get her attention. Beneath clinging strands of white, wet hair, Asta’s eyelids fluttered. Finally, with a certain amount of steadiness, her eyes fell open on Maore.
“Mahasagi,” Maore summoned Najat to bring the baby. She kept her eyes on Asta’s face, willing the woman to stay focused. Asta’s lips quivered blue against Maore’s thumb. She was trying to speak.
“Suuu…” Her breath fell on Maore with a heavy smell. The women all leaned in, trying to grasp her words.
Asta had nothing to say. Her eyes rolled back. She convulsed again, a test of muscle power for the women supporting her.
“Mahasagi!” said Maore, as Asta stopped moving and sagged in the women’s straining arms. Najat did not step forward. Maore looked up and saw only her dazed attendants. The candle-dim chamber beyond was empty.
Najat Gampoban had vanished, along with Asta’s newborn child.