DISCLAIMER: Mage: the Ascension and the World of Darkness is the property of White Wolf Publishing. All characters in this story are, however, mine.
For the record: yes, the Nephandus in this story is an Euthanathoi. No, she's not a corrupted Euthanathoi. She's a proper Euthanathoi, carrying out a proper Euthanathoi's work. In my version of the World of Darkness, the Euthanathos are a Nephandic cult. The reason for that should be clear from the story.
Also for the record, I'm 100% for assisted suicide. But the key word is "suicide".
***
The first night Desmond Flanagan saw the Nephandus, he was lying awake because his wound ached. It wasn't a serious wound; the bullet had missed all major organs and just ploughed its way through fat and muscle. It hadn't gotten infected, either; the doctors had assured him that he would be out of the hospital by the end of the week, though he would have to come back for a few checkups. Even so, sometimes there was a dull pounding in it that made sleep impossible, no matter how tired he was.
They had put him in a bed that was part of a long row of beds along a corridor. There were sheets of cloth hanging between the different bed spaces, to offer the residents a modicum of privacy, but the one between Desmond and his closest neighbour had been left drawn back. If it hadn't been, nothing of what happened would have come to pass.
The coincidence surprised him but a little. He had lived his life in a world of little miracles.
The Nephandus was a woman of indeterminate age, small and pale, with dark hair tied into a bun at her neck. She was wearing a nurse's white clothes, and she brought the pillow down to block Desmond's neighbour's mouth and nose with professional care.
"My good lady," Desmond said from his bed. "What are you doing?"
She flinched, and the pillow stopped in its descent. She looked at him with oddly vulnerable eyes.
"This is just a dream," she said softly. "Go back to sleep, sir."
He could feel the enchantment closing on him, but he brushed it off. He had sometimes spent as much as a week without sleep in order to learn not to be commanded by his body. If he could stay awake when every fibre of his being screamed for sleep, why should this little spell be a problem for him?
"It's tempting," he said. "I'm very tired. But I really don't think you should do what you're doing."
He saw realisation dawn. He was part of her world; he was not someone that she could brush off by virtue of her abilities. She straightened up, looking calmly at him.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Well." The brow beneath Desmond's long, white hair wrinkled. "We might begin with Thou Shalt Not Kill."
"But I'm not a Christian, sir."
He smiled faintly.
"But you are, I think, a human being. It's a dark thing, to take a human life. I would advice against it."
She watched him dispassionately.
"You have never taken a life, sir? Ever?"
"I have," Desmond admitted. "Not happily and not as anything but a last resort. But I have."
"And I do not take this life happily," the Nephandus said. "And this is the only answer that remains."
Desmond pondered that in silence for a moment. The Nephandus waited.
"If this is the answer," he said, "what is the question?" He looked at the sleeping patient. He was an old and very thin man, completely bald on the head but sporting a thick, grey beard. "What has he done, that he must die?"
"He has done nothing. But he suffers." The Nephandus stroked the elderly man's forehead with a pale finger. "His sickness has gone beyond any cure. His every breath is pain. It's better for him to die."
"Everyone suffers," Desmond said. "How do you decide whose suffering is so great that it would be better for him to be dead?"
A slight shrug.
"I use my best judgement."
"There are many things that humans are fit to judge," Desmond said. "And then there are a few where no one but God is fit to judge. This, I think, is one of the second kind. Go away."
The Nephandus looked at him quietly, and then turned around and walked away.
Desmond continued his involuntary vigil, now with more than ever to keep him awake.
***
The next day, Desmond spoke to the elderly man in the next bed. They were both having a trey's worth of hospital food for breakfast. The man ate slowly, without appetite, and with hands that would not quite obey him. Desmond did not find the food especially appetising, but thanked the One and Prime for it regardless. The world was filled with things that were poisonous, or at the very least unsuitable, for humans to eat. Once you realised that, you understood that any kind of food was to be considered a gift.
"My name's Desmond Flanagan," he said conversationally. "What's yours?"
The old man slowly turned his head to face him. He squinted nearsightedly at Desmond.
"E-excuse me?" he said. His voice was frail, and strained, and old. "Are you talking to me…?"
"Yes," Desmond said.
"My… my name is Martin Glower," the old man said.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Glower," Desmond said. "And how do you feel this fine morning?"
Martin laughed. It was a thin, hoarse, mirthless sound.
"Oh, young man. You don't want to know."
Desmond shrugged.
"I have gotten answers that I haven't liked often enough," he said. "That hasn't made me stop asking questions."
"Oh." Martin smiled humourlessly. "In that case, I feel like I'm dying. Is that one of those answers you don't like?"
"I can't say I particularly care for it, no," Desmond agreed.
"Well, there you have it all the same." Martin sank back against the pillows with a low groan. "It hurts, you know. Dying does. In my head… my chest… my gut. And every time I think that it can't get any worse, I just have to wait another week and it does."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Desmond said sincerely. "May I ask you a question, Mr. Glower?"
Martin smiled weakly.
"It's just Martin, young man. Just Martin. I don't feel strong enough for niceties. And yes, you may."
"Thank you. And feel free to call me Desmond," the younger man said. "My question is this: with all the pain you are in, do you wish to die?"
Martin sighed.
"You would think I would, wouldn't you?"
"I will not insult the variety of God's creation by assuming I understand someone I have just met," Desmond said immediately. "But if you said that you did, I would see why. That is true."
Martin nodded slowly, but didn't speak. He remained silent for so long that Desmond wondered if he had gone to sleep, but then he turned his head slightly, looking at Desmond with tired eyes.
"No, I don't want to die," he said simply. "I know I will whether I want to or not. And I want the pain to end. But I wish that the pain would end without me having to die." His eyes gleamed, moist. "Isn't it silly? You would think an old man like me would have more sense than to wish for the impossible, wouldn't you?"
"I see nothing wrong with wishing for the impossible," Desmond said. "God sometimes grants even prayers we haven't voiced. But I don't think that He bothers with those who have lost even the courage to dream." He shrugged. "I may of course be wrong."
The corners of Martin's mouth twitched.
"Are you a priest, young man?"
"When I was a young man, I was a priest," Desmond said, mildly amused. "Now I'm a middle-aged man, and I have given up preaching."
"I'm sorry." Martin sighed. "My eyes aren't very good. I just heard that your voice was strong." He put a finger on his lip, thoughtful. "I never did believe in any of that stuff. I was a devoted atheist. Huh. I guess that means that either I was right and I'll just fade away, or I was wrong and I'll burn in Hell."
"Oh, I daresay there are more possibilities than those," Desmond said with a shrug. "And atheism and religion aren't especially important distinctions. It's far more important, as I see it, to admit your place in the world."
"Place?" Martin said blankly.
"That you are part of the world," Desmond said, "not just an uninvited guest. If there is a God who made us all, then He meant for us to be here, and He meant for us to influence and interact with the world around us. If there is not, then we are simply jumped-up apes walking around on a ball of stone floating in space, and we are free to make of our lives what we see fit. In both cases, each man and woman has importance, and rights, and responsibilities. The question is whether you admit that to yourself, or hide in the conviction that nothing you do matters, either because God decides everything anyway or because there is no God and nothing at all matters."
Martin looked startled at the rant. Desmond personally felt somewhat proud of it. Maybe he hadn't quite lost his touch from his old days as a travelling preacher.
"I… can't say I've ever thought about it," the old man finally said. "But I did my best of my life, if that's what you mean. I married the girl of my dreams, and we had fine children. I spent forty years teaching elementary school. Loved every moment of it. But still…"
"You want more," Desmond said.
"Yes." Martin nodded slowly. "Yes. I want more life. So much more…" He sighed. "You don't suppose your God would grant that to an old atheist, do you?"
"God will do what He will, and He does not tell me what, or why," Desmond said. "But I think it's unlikely."
They didn't talk more that day.
***
The second night Desmond Flanagan saw the Nephandus, he had been expecting her. This night his wound didn't feel so bad; God had blessed him with a quick healing, and the injury was rapidly closing up beneath the bandage. He could have slept if he had wanted to, this night, but he didn't. He lay awake, waiting for the Nephandus.
Around midnight, she came. She made no move to choke Martin this time. Instead, she walked up to the spot where she had stood the previous night and looked calmly at Desmond.
"He says that he doesn't want to die," Desmond said conversationally.
"He should," the Nephandus said. "This life has nothing left to offer him. He should let go of it."
"That is as might be," Desmond said. "But it's his life, and he has the right to cling to it if he wishes."
"Is that how you see it?" the Nephandus said. "Is that how we should all act, we Awakened ones? Just leave everyone to their own devices, because we respect them too much to teach them that there's a better way?"
"You're not teaching," Desmond pointed out. "You're killing."
"I am doing him a favour. He does not have the courage to let go of his ailing body. I'm ending his torment for him."
"You are ending his life along with his torment," Desmond said. "He wants the latter gone, but he's fond of the former."
The Nephandus shrugged.
"Death is the most natural thing there is," she said. "This age, this culture, thinks it is a horrible thing, that should be avoided at all cost. People flee from death when they should be preparing for it. No one can live forever, and yet everyone tries, and their lives are less fulfilling because of it. Is this right?"
"Probably not," Desmond said. "So go out. Give lectures. Talk to people. Try to make them see things your way. If you can convince people to meet death with dignity, by all means do so. But you're not trying to convince this man. You're trying to kill this man. And whatever rhetoric you put behind that, it will still be wrong."
For the first time, anger gleamed in the Nephandus' dark eyes.
"And what am I stealing from him," she said, "that is so invaluable that you have to defend it so vigorously? A few more days. A week, at the most. Filled with pain, filled with fear, filled with misery. How is that preferable to a quick, painless death in his sleep?" She paused. "Or perhaps you think your God will rescue him? Perform a miracle and make him whole again? Is that what you think, man who is no longer a priest?"
"I think it's unlikely," Desmond said again.
"Then what do you think?"
"I think that God gave this man his life," Desmond said. "And in a few more days, a week at the most, God will take it back again. Until that happens, his life is his own, and you will not touch it. Go away."
Once more, the Nephandus turned around and walked away.
***
Desmond was thoughtful the next day. He didn't touch any of the books he had had his friends bring him. Instead, he just lay in his bed, staring intently at the wall and pondering.
"What are you thinking about?" Martin said with his thin old man's voice. Desmond blinked and turned to look at his neighbour.
"Life," he said, "and what makes it worth living. And God, and what He expects us to make of this strange place He's put us in."
"And?" Martin said.
"And I must admit that I really have no idea. Oh, I have more theories than you can shake a stick at. But all of them seem so small and frail when I hold them up to reality."
Martin chuckled breathlessly.
"You haven't really given up preaching," he said. "You're just not preaching to anyone but yourself these days."
Desmond shrugged.
"At least I can be sure that I'll have my own full attention."
"Why do you believe?" Martin asked curiously. "I never could find anything that seemed plausible."
Desmond considered the question.
"I suppose I believe because it suits me to believe," he said. "Because it falls natural to me to see the world in that way."
"Hmm." Martin looked thoughtful. "Pardon an old man who doesn't have the strength for courtesy… but isn't that akin to wishful thinking?"
Desmond didn't take offence. He had considered that question often enough.
"Not quite," he said. "Wishful thinking is closing your eyes to reality. What I'm doing is more like… interpreting reality. And really, all interpretations are equally valid, as long as they are internally logical."
Martin gave him a confused look.
"Simple example?" Desmond said. "If you drop a stone, it will in all but a very rare few cases fall to the ground. But does it fall because the weight of the Earth has made a deepening in the local space-time, or does it fall because God has decreed that it should? There is no way to tell the difference, so we may as well decide on the latter. However, having decided to believe in that, I can't believe that airplanes fly against the will of God, because if he can pull down a rock, why should it be beyond His power to pull down an airplane? My view of the world must be internally logical, but otherwise, I can believe what I choose – and whenever I fail to accurately predict the workings of the world, I just have to refine my theories to fit the new information."
"I don't understand," Martin said. "You sound more like a scientist than a priest…"
Desmond shrugged.
"When religion is at its best, it is just science with a soul," he said. "And when science is at its worst, it's just religion without one. One paradigm is as good as another until proven to be contradictive or in denial of known evidence."
It was even more complicated than that, actually, but Desmond didn't feel like explaining Consensual Reality to Martin. He didn't really need to know, anyway. It wasn't the point.
"I've never looked at it that way before," Martin admitted.
"Most people don't," Desmond said. "Most people are too fond of the idea that the world can only be described in one way, and that that way provides the whole of the description. But the universe is more complicated than that. God may know how it all fits together, but I'm not sure any one person can." He smiled wryly. "But it's still a worthy thing to try to figure it out."
"You know?" Martin smiled, deep in thought. "I think you may be right about that…" He looked at Desmond, really focused on him for the first time, and Desmond realised how sharp Martin had been before age and illness had turned him into a shadow of himself, how strong and intelligent. "Give me a theory, Desmond. Preach to someone else for a change. Tell me why God will make me die when I want so badly to live."
Desmond moistened his lips and thought deeply.
"Because things break," he said simply. "Fair enough, people aren't things, but their bodies are. As living creatures go, we live for a long, long time, but eventually, our bodies fall apart around us. They change and warp until we can't use them anymore, and then we die. Things break. It's how the universe works.
"I'm sure God could have created another sort of universe, one where things didn't break. But the creatures living there wouldn't have been people – they wouldn't have been even remotely like us. And I think their lives would have been less interesting than ours, too. They wouldn't be able to eat, because that means destroying something. Even plants destroy sunlight to live. They couldn't build anything, because to build something you have to destroy the raw materials, turn them into something they're not. They would have dull, uneventful lives where nothing ever changed. I'm not sure whether or not immortality would be worth that price – it might be, or it might not be – but I do know that mortality has its rewards.
"As for miracles, I know for a fact that they happen. People have recovered from terminal diseases for no apparent reason. I don't know why that happens, or why God decides that they deserve to live longer while others pray in vain for a miracle that never comes and then dies. Maybe there's some reason that a human mind can understand, and in that case I hope I'll find out someday. Or, hell, maybe it's just one big die-roll and there is no reason, understandable or otherwise. But I do know that you can't expect a miracle. That's what the word means; that the world makes an exception, just this once. And while we have to accept the fact that that probably won't happen, I honestly don't believe we can, should, or even are supposed to stop hoping for it to happen. That might just be why miracles happen at all. So we won't stop hoping, no matter what."
"Breakable things," Martin said sleepily. "With hope."
"That's us," Desmond said, shrugging. "Near as I can tell."
"Yeah." Martin closed his eyes. "Yeah, could be…"
Then he fell asleep.
He never woke up again.
***
The third night Desmond Flanagan saw the Nephandus, he had been sleeping when she gently shook him awake. He opened his pale-blue eyes and looked up at her, without fear.
"So," she said. "You won him less than two days."
"It was what he had left," Desmond said.
"No miracle happened," the Nephandus said. "He suffered for two more days, and then he died. What was the point of that? How was that better than letting me kill him when I wanted to?"
"It was better," Desmond just said.
The Nephandus scowled.
"Your God killed him, in the end," she said. "Tortured him and then killed him. I would have killed him quick and easy. Why is it preferable to let your God do it?"
Desmond shrugged.
"God kills us all, in the end," he said, "and we can't do anything about it. All we can do is try to make sure we get the whole of the time that is allowed to us. And that we let others have the time allowed to them."
"Even when that time contains nothing but pain?" the Nephandus demanded.
Desmond smiled.
"His last day contained a new thought," he said. "I don't call that day wasted, even if there was pain in it. I like to think that Martin would have agreed, though I didn't get the chance to ask him."
"Martin?" the Nephandus said, perplexed for a moment. Then she understood. "Oh, you mean…"
Desmond laughed, a harsh, surprised laugh.
"You didn't even bother to learn his first name, and still you thought you could judge the worth of his last days? You're a fool."
The Nephandus pressed her lips together.
"We are enemies now, man who is no longer a priest," she said.
"I think we were enemies long before we ever met," Desmond said coldly. "Go away."
She turned around and walked away. He didn't see her for the rest of his stay at the hospital.