‘I could not calm your terror nor stop you when you fled. You looked at me, bloodless and clean, then at yourself. And when your eyes alighted on the torn body that had been your father you made that ill-founded connection and ran from the cabin.’ Calvin paused and raised a finger at him. ‘Where did you go?’

Sam tried to control his face, but it was twitching in agony. ‘The river. All that blood …’

Calvin nodded. ‘I took your father’s body and after I prayed over it I took two of those precious parts, lying severed and torn on the floor, and I violated him with them.’

Sam stared at him. ‘What?’

‘The penis. I put it in his mouth. The heart I placed in his rectum.’

Sam could hardly breathe. He stared at Calvin with horror. ‘Why?’

‘Eden told me to.’

Sam was shaking his head, his mouth gaping open, denying what he was hearing.

Calvin remained calm, his tone that of a teacher rather than a madman. ‘He told me how Moses would die, and that it was important that when he was found there should be a sign to the one who can save the keeper.’ Calvin’s voice dropped. For a moment he lost his lecturing tone and sounded sad. ‘He failed to tell me that he would die first, at the hand of his own son. But I obeyed him. I took off the amulet and wrapped the body in a skin. It had left its mark, the Isksaksin. Plain as if it had branded him. I buried the body where Eden had told me to, in the sacred burial ground by the river. The ground was so dry, so sandy I thought I would never make the hole big enough. But I toiled in the hot sun, alone except for the crows that circled above me, and laid him down. Then I returned to your cabin, washed the blood from the walls and the floor and waited for you.’

Sam was still aghast. He could not speak and even if he could, he had nothing to say. Calvin looked across at him, still with love in his eyes. ‘I knew you would come back. I had to give you the Isksaksin.’

Sam found his tongue and spat out the words. ‘And I took it.’

Calvin nodded. ‘You had no choice. You are the keeper.’

There was no sound from his young companion. He was just staring at the old shaman as if he had been cheated. Calvin sighed. ‘He killed himself, Sam. He died because he was evil. Take the stone of guilt from your soul and cast it away.’