Beneath Ceaseless Skies #306, June 18, 2020
“Kill the Witchman” by William Broom
“The Augur and the Girl Left at His Door” by Greta Hayer
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
This issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies brings to the table two fantastic tales of magic and family bonds.
“Kill the Witchman” by William Broom
When the chaptermaster sets a cup of broth before him on the table, Dumu drinks. He’s a witch hunter, and his latest mission is to find and kill another witchman and his son. The broth will keep the hunted sorcerer from altering his memories. It also has the unfortunate side-effect of suppressing all Dumu’s memories, however, only allowing him to exist entirely in the moment, driven solely by the need to complete his mission. As he follows the Witchman’s trail, Dumu starts to succumb to his quarry’s powers, his memory becoming a mix of reality and lies.
When reading Broom’s story, I couldn’t help but think of the Norse god, Odin. I realize that may seem a rather incongruous or even random association, but this tale is so wrapped up in the idea of memory that I immediately recalled Odin’s greatest fear—losing the raven Muninn, or his memory, in other words. In memory lies the self, so to lose one’s memory is to lose one’s self and all that it encompasses. This is exactly the experience we encounter through Dumu’s mission. It’s hard to tell whether Dumu is really who he starts to believe himself to be in the end, and it’s this constant shifting of memory that keeps the reader guessing. In the end, we’re left with the uncertainty of who the witch hunter truly is, but we’re also confronted with the fact that it doesn’t matter. The memory that Dumu is left with has become his reality. An excellent story, and one I highly recommend.
“The Augur and the Girl Left at His Door” by Greta Hayer
The augur was renowned for being able to read a person’s fate by examining their skin. Years ago, he had even served as court soothsayer to the emperor, only to be banished when he made a single but terrible mistake. He had not lied—the augur does not believe in lying—but he had failed to take into consideration certain features of the emperor’s physique when making his predictions. The omission of certain facts, however, is not lying as far as he is concerned and today a young bridegroom sits in his chambers, stripped bare and undergoing the augur’s examination. The child foretold on the man’s skin would bring misfortune but, instead of sharing this dire prediction, the soothsayer simply tells him he will have a daughter and then travel to the city to seek his fortune. Some months later, the newborn infant appeared on the augur’s doorstep, her mother having died in childbirth. He read her skin, seeing all the joys and miseries life would bring her. Abandoned by her father, the augur decided to raise the girl himself. She will be an inquisitive child, but will he ever be able to tell her what fate has written on her skin?
Another well-chosen story, Hayer’s tale is a rather heartwarming, if tumultuous, tale of fate and familial bonds. It focuses on the ups and downs of life, and asks the question of whether one should be seeking out or relying on prophets, especially those who feel it’s okay to shower the seeker with the good but omit the bad to spare feelings.
Despite this less-than-stellar transparency regarding what he sees, the augur is a very empathetic and relatable character. He wants so much to shield the girl from the woes of this world but, in the story’s universe, fate is inescapable, and his actions and omissions don’t help her avoid the misery and heartbreak he originally foresees. It also makes one wonder why he has continued in this profession, since he allows his own negative experiences to color his worldview, which in turn affects his art by making him believe that it’s better for people to remain ignorant of their fate. Either way, this story is very much worth a read.