William Broom - [BCS306 S01] Read online

  “None of those things ever happened,” Ketan says.

  It doesn’t matter. They are no less real than the memories he is forcing upon me.

  “Don’t do this, Dumu. Don’t turn your back on Nazd.”

  He fills me up with images of the boy: my sweet, clever, mischievous nephew. Learning to catch crayfish in the mangrove swamps. Cooking plantains over an open fire. Trying to string my bow.

  Again and again I pull away from the lies. Again and again I am drawn back—not by Ketan but by Nazd, who even now is leaning over me with a damp cloth to my brow. “Uncle, please,” he whispers. “Come back to us.”

  Then I see it: the flaw in Ketan’s plan. The gap in his armour, through which I can strike at him. The way to kill the witchman.

  I let the memories flow together like two streams joining. On the one hand, my mission. On the other hand, my nephew Nazd. Together they will draw me through the witchman’s net.

  I remember that I am Ketan’s brother, and Nazd is my nephew whom I love more than my own life. But I also remember the abominations that Ketan committed, the madness and the massacres. Seeing him drunk on power yet wracked by paranoia. Fearing every day that he would lash out at me or his son. When I could bear it no longer I fled from him and begged the help of the witch-hunters. I was ready to kill my brother—for the sake of justice, but above all for the sake of Nazd.

  The memories congeal and harden around me. They become truth. Now I know who I am and what I have come here to do.

  I heave myself up to a sitting position, making the boat rock wildly. My hands are tied in front of me, but it doesn’t matter. Ever since we were children, Ketan has never bested me in a fight. I strike him across the brow, then push him down until I am on top of him in the bottom of the boat. I put my hands around his neck.

  “Brother!” he gasps.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  Nazd is beating me with his fists, but I ignore him. I press my thumbs down into Ketan’s windpipe, deeper and deeper, until I feel the snap as it collapses. He sucks at the air, but nothing comes in. His arms flap weakly. His eyes go dull.

  I let go.

  Nazd is still striking me and weeping. I put my arms around him and hold him tight. “It’s alright. It’s alright.” I realise I am crying too.

  We cry together, arms locked, for a long time. For a while Nazd becomes calm, but when he looks over at his father he begins to howl even louder than before. The boat is so small that we cannot even sit down without touching Ketan’s body.

  “Say goodbye,” I tell Nazd. “We have to give him to the water now.”

  I give Nazd a moment. Then I pick up my brother’s body and let it slide over the side into the dull green water. Weighed down by his robes, he sinks without a trace.

  Soon a dreadful fever begins to grow in my skull. I become paralysed. I lie in the bottom of the boat, sweating and delirious, watching night and day slide past overhead in a phantasmagoric tapestry. I know I am fighting not just for my life but for who I am—this me that I have made out of the broken parts Ketan left me. I must hold on with all my strength or I will dissolve back into the void.

  I wake to morning sunlight. We are still on the river. Nazd is leaning over me with a knife in his hand. He presses it against my throat.

  “Do it if you think it’s right,” I tell him.

  He holds the knife there for a long time. Tears roll down his cheeks and his hands shake. The blade is cold against my skin, drawing a trickle of warm blood. I fade into fever dreams.

  The next time I wake up, he is at the rear of the boat, looking away from me. There is no sign of the knife.

  Later he comes to me and, without saying anything, pours fresh water down my throat.

  The fever lasts three days. At some point we must have come ashore, because when I wake on the fourth morning I find myself inside a small tent. Nazd brings me a little food and watches silently while I eat it.

  We come to an understanding with our eyes alone. Each of us has our own memories, our own reasons for needing the other. Words would only bring complications, rifts between our fragile new selves. So we say nothing. At last Nazd leaves me alone to sleep through the day. When night falls he comes and curls up beside me for warmth, just as he used to do back home.

  The next day I am able to crawl outside and stand on shaking legs. We are camped on the shore of a great blue-brown lake, fringed on all sides by trackless wilderness. We are far in the north, beyond the empire’s borders, in lands that have no name.

  Nazd asks me, shyly, what we will do now. I look down at him. Soon he will come into his own power as a witchman. The chapterhouse will send more hunters after him, and when they do I will be ready. I will protect him with my life.

  I take his hand and we pack up our camp together. Then we climb back into the canoe and set off: across the great still water, toward the distant northern shore.

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