“You see?” Goddard told Rowan. “The firefighters can’t interfere with a scythe action. They’ll let the whole thing burn down. And as for the survivors, we have a wonderful public relations opportunity.”
Then he stepped forward and spoke loudly to those who hadn’t fled. “Our gleaning is complete,” he announced. “To those who survive, we grant immunity. Come forward to claim it.” He held out his hand—the one that bore his ring. The other scythes followed his lead and did the same.
No one moved at first, probably thinking it was a trick. But in a few moments, one ash-stained employee stumbled forward, followed by another and another, and then the entire mob was apprehensively coming toward them. The first few knelt and kissed the scythes’ rings—and once the others saw that this was for real, they surged forward, mobbing the scythes.
“Easy!” shouted Volta. “One at a time!”
But the same mob mentality that propelled their escape now pushed them toward those life-saving rings. All of a sudden, no one seemed to remember their dead coworkers.
Then, as the crowd around them got denser and more agitated, Goddard pulled back his hand, removed his ring, and handed it to Rowan.
“I tire of this,” Goddard said. “Take it. Share in the adoration.”
“But . . . I can’t. I’m not ordained.”
“You can use it if I give you permission as a proxy,” Goddard told him. “And right now you have my permission.”
Rowan put it on, but it wouldn’t stay, so he switched it to his index finger, where it was a bit more snug. Then he held out his hand as the other scythes did.
The crush of people didn’t care which finger the ring was on, or even whose hand it was on. They practically climbed over one another to kiss it, and to thank him for his justice, his love, and his mercy, calling him “Your Honor,” not even noticing he wasn’t a scythe.
“Welcome to life as a god,” Scythe Volta said to him. While behind them the building burned to the ground.
* * *
We are wise but not perfect, insightful but not all-seeing. We know that by establishing the Scythedom, we will be doing something very necessary, but we, the first scythes, still have our misgivings. Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest. Our hope is that by a set of ten simple, straightforward laws, we can avoid the pitfalls of human fallibility. My greatest hope is that, in time, our wisdom will become as perfect as is our knowledge. And if this experiment of ours fails, we have also embedded a way to escape it.
May the Thunderhead help us all, if we ever need that escape.
—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Prometheus, the??first World Supreme Blade
* * *
26
Not Like the Others
That night they feasted, although Rowan could not dig up an appetite, no matter how deep he mined. Goddard ate enough for everyone. He was invigorated by the day’s hunt, like a vampire sucking in the life force of its victims. He was more charming, more suave than ever, saying things to make everyone laugh. How easy, thought Rowan, to fall in with him. To be stroked into his elite club, just as the others had been.
Clearly, Chomsky and Rand were cut from a similar cloth as Goddard. They held not the slightest illusion of conscience. But unlike Goddard, they held no delusions of grandeur. They gleaned for sport—for the joy of it—and as Scythe Rand so accurately put it, because they can. They were more than happy to wield their weapons while Goddard inhabited his role as the Angel of Death. Rowan couldn’t be sure if the man believed it, or if it was all artifice. Theatricality to add flair to the show.
Scythe Volta, though, was different. Yes, he stormed the office building and gleaned his share, just as the others had, but he said little as their god-machine carried them home across the sky. And now at dinner, he barely touched the food on his plate. He kept getting up to wash his hands. He probably thought nobody noticed, but Rowan did. And so did Esme.
“Scythe Volta is always cranky after a gleaning,” Esme leaned over to tell Rowan. “Don’t stare at him, or he’ll throw something at you.”
Halfway through dinner, Goddard asked for a final count.
“We gleaned two hundred sixty-three,” Rand told him. “We’re ahead of our quota now. We’ll have to glean fewer next time.”
Goddard slammed his fist down on the table in disgust. “The damn quota hobbles us all! If it weren’t for the quota, every day could be like today.” ?Then Goddard turned to Scythe Volta and asked how his task was coming. It was Volta’s job to set appointments with the families of the deceased, so that they could be granted the obligatory immunity.
“I’ve spent the whole day reaching out to each family,” ?Volta said. “They’ll be lining up at the outer gate first thing tomorrow morning.”
“We should let them onto the grounds,” Goddard said with a smirk. “They can watch Rowan train on the lawn.”
“I hate the bereaved,” Rand said, as she stabbed a fresh piece of meat with her fork and dragged it to her plate. “They always have such awful oral hygiene—my ring always reeks after an hour of granting bereavement immunity.”
Unable to stomach any more, Rowan excused himself. “I promised Esme I’d play cards with her after dinner, and it’s getting late.” There was no truth in that, but he threw a glance to Esme and she nodded, pleased to be part of an impromptu conspiracy.
“But you’ll miss the crème br?lée,” said Goddard.
“More for us,” said Chomsky, shoving a forkful of prime rib into his maw.
Rowan and Esme went to the game room and played gin rummy, mercifully undisturbed by talk of gleaning and quotas and the kissing of rings. Rowan was thankful that the suicide king held the monopoly on misery in this room.
“We should get others to join us,” Esme suggested. “Then we can play hearts or spades. You can’t play those games with just two.”
“I have no interest in playing cards with the scythes,” Rowan told her flatly.
“Not them, silly—I mean the servants.” She picked up his discarded nine—the second one he fed to her, as if he didn’t know she was collecting them. Letting her win today was payment for helping him escape the dining room.
“I play cards with the pool man’s sons sometimes,” she told him. “But they don’t like me very much on account of this used to be their house. Now they all share a room in the servant’s quarters.” ?Then she added, “You’re sleeping in one of their rooms, you know. So I’ll bet they don’t like you much, either.”
“I’m sure they don’t like any of us.”
“Probably not.”
Maybe it was because Esme was young, but she seemed entirely oblivious to the things that weighed so heavily on Rowan. Perhaps she knew better than to question things, or to pass judgment on what she saw. She accepted her situation at face value, and never spoke ill of her benefactor—or more accurately, her captor, for she was clearly Goddard’s prisoner, even though she might not see it that way. Hers was a gilded cage, but it was a cage nonetheless. Still, her ignorance was her bliss, and Rowan decided not to shatter her illusion that she was free.
Rowan picked up an ace, which he needed for his hand, but discarded it anyway. “Does Goddard ever talk to you?” He asked Esme.
“Of course he talks to me,” she said. “He’s always asking me how I am, and if there’s anything I need. And if there is, he always makes sure I get it. Just last week I asked for a—”
“—No, not that kind of talking,” said Rowan, cutting her off. “I mean real talking. Has he ever hinted as to why you matter so much to him?”
Esme didn’t answer. Instead she lay down her cards. Nines over threes. “Rummy,” she said. “Loser shuffles.”
Rowan gathered the cards. “Scythe Goddard must have had a good reason to let you live, and to grant you immunity. Aren’t you at all curious?”
Esme shrugged, and stayed tight-lipped. It was only after Rowan dealt the next hand that she said, “Actually, Scythe Goddard didn’t grant me immunity. He can glean me any time he wants, but he doesn’t.” Then she smiled. “That makes me even more special, don’t you think?”