“I’d almost given you up,” Groff’s voice said as he dragged Luther from the tunnel. “I was going to wait above, but the stone called to me, told me it would fall.”
Groff’s boots and clothing were soaked from untold hours of sitting in the puddle at the bottom of the shaft. Each man heard the divine in his own way, and to his own limits. And Luther realized that his father had heard all he had been able to bear, to his own limits as well. But it wasn’t too late to change that.
Luther shielded his eyes from the daylight, not so far above as he had thought. Groff tied the rope beneath Luther’s arms, called up to his comrades, and Luther was lifted gratefully toward the light.
The Sun shone brilliant on the markers of Eisleben churchyard, the weedy ground muddied by yet another night’s rain. Luther stood before one particular marker, the wood already failing with time, the carved letters, barely visible: Hans Luder.
Luther held the dagger tooth out, between his shaking hands, for his father to see.
"This is why I defied you," he said to the silent earth. "Not for fear of my own life. I feared a terror and majesty I saw only when the veil of death so briefly opened my eyes. Now, I give it to you." He knelt and placed the tooth on the rain-softened earth. And knew that, at last, his father understood.
