24
An Embarrassment to Who and What We Are
Numb. Rowan could feel himself growing numb—and while it might have been a good thing for his beleaguered sanity, it was not a good thing for his soul.
“Never lose your humanity,” Scythe Faraday had told him, “or you’ll be nothing more than a killing machine.” He had used the word “killing” rather than “gleaning.” Rowan hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now he understood; it stopped being gleaning the moment one became desensitized to the act.
Yet this great plain of numbness was not the worst place to be. Numbness was a mere purgatory of gray. No, there was a much worse place. Darkness masquerading as enlightenment. It was a place of royal blue studded with diamonds that glistened like stars.
• • •
“No no no!” chided Scythe Goddard as he watched Rowan practice bladecraft with a samurai sword on cotton-stuffed dummies. “Have you learned nothing?”
Rowan was exasperated, but he kept it just beneath a simmer, counting to ten in his head before turning to face the scythe, who approached across the expanse of the estate’s front lawn, now littered with fluff and cottony remains.
“What did I do wrong this time, Your Honor?” To Rowan, the phrase “Your Honor” had become a profanity, and he couldn’t help but spit it out like one. “I cleanly decapitated five of them, eviscerated three, and I severed the aortas of the rest. If any of them had actually been alive, they would be dead now. I did just what you wanted.”
“That’s the problem,” said the scythe. “It’s not what I want, it’s what you want. Where is your passion? You attack like a bot!”
Rowan sighed, sheathing his blade. Now would come a lecture, or more accurately, an oration, because Scythe Goddard loved nothing more than performing to the gallery, even if it was just a gallery of one.
“Human beings are predatory by nature,” he began. “That nature may have been bleached out of us by the sanitizing force of civilization, but it can never be taken from us completely. Embrace it, Rowan. Suckle at its transformative breast. You may think gleaning is an acquired taste, but it’s not. The thrill of the hunt and the joy of the kill simmers in all of us. Bring it to the surface and then you’ll be the kind of scythe this world needs.”
Rowan wanted to despise all of this, but there was something about honing one’s skill, no matter the nature of that skill, that was rewarding. What he hated was the fact that he didn’t hate it.
Servants replaced the dummies with fresh effigies. Scarecrows with extremely short life spans. Then Goddard took the samurai blade from him and handed him a nasty-looking hunting knife instead, for a more intimate delivery of death.
“It’s a bowie knife, like Texan scythes use,” Goddard told him. “Take great satisfaction and pleasure in this, Rowan,” said Scythe Goddard, “or you’ll be nothing more than a killing machine.”
• • •
Each day was the same: a morning run with Scythe Rand, weight training with Scythe Chomsky, and a nutritionally precise breakfast prepared by a master chef. Then would come killcraft administered by Scythe Goddard himself. Blades, bows, ballistics, or the use of his own body as a weapon of death. Never poisons unless they were on the tips of weapons.
“Gleaning is performed, not administered,” Scythe Goddard told him. “It is a willful action. To slip into passivity and allow a poison to do all the work is an embarrassment to who and what we are.”
Goddard’s pontifications were constant, and although Rowan often disagreed, he didn’t argue or voice his dissent. In this way, Goddard’s voice began to supplant his own internal moderator. It became the voice of judgment in his own head. Rowan didn’t know why this would be so. Yet Goddard was now there in his head, passing judgment on everything he did.
The afternoons would be filled with mental training with Scythe Volta. Memory exercises, and games to increase cognitive acuity. The smallest part of Rowan’s day, just before dinner, was spent in book learning—but Rowan found that the mental training helped him retain the things he learned without the repetition of study.
“You will know your history, your biochemistry, and your toxins ad nauseam to impress at conclave,” Goddard told Rowan with a disgusted wave of his hand. “I’ve always found it pointless, but one must impress the academics in the Scythedom as well as the pragmatists.”
“Is that what you are?” Rowan asked. “A pragmatist?”
It was Volta who answered him. “Scythe Goddard is a visionary. That puts him on a level above every other scythe in MidMerica. Maybe even the world.”
Goddard didn’t disagree.
And then there were the parties. They came upon the estate like seizures. Everything else stopped. They even took precedence over Rowan’s training. He had no idea who organized them, or where the revelers came from, but they always came, along with food enough to feed armies, and every sort of decadence.
Rowan didn’t know if it was his imagination, but there seemed to be more scythes and known celebrities frequenting Goddard’s parties than when he first arrived.
In three months, the change in Rowan’s physique was obvious, and he spent more time than he would want anyone to know studying the change in the tall mirror in his bedroom. There was definition everywhere—his abs, his pecs. Biceps seemed to inflate out of nowhere, and Scythe Rand constantly slapped his glutes, threatening all sorts of lewd liaisons with him once he was of age.
He had finally gotten the hang of his journal, writing things that bordered on thoughtful—but it was still just a sham. He never wrote what he truly felt, for he knew that his “private” journal was not private at all, and that Scythe Goddard read every last word. So he wrote only things that Goddard would want to read.
Although Rowan did not forget his secret pledge to throw the scythehood to Citra, there were moments when he willfully suppressed it in his mind, allowing himself to imagine what it would be like to be an ordained scythe. Would he be the type of scythe Faraday was, or would he accept the teachings of Goddard? As much as Rowan tried to deny it, there was logic to Goddard’s approach. After all, what creature in nature despised its own existence and felt shame for its means of survival?
We became unnatural the moment we conquered death, Scythe Faraday would say—but couldn’t that be a reason to seek whatever nature we could find within ourselves? If he learned to enjoy gleaning, would it be such a tragedy?
He kept these thoughts to himself, but Scythe Volta could read, if not the specifics, then the general nature of his thoughts.
“I know you were first brought on as an apprentice for very different traits than the ones Scythe Goddard admires,” Volta told him. “He sees compassion and forbearance as weakness. But you have other traits that are beginning to awaken. You’ll be a new-order scythe yet!”
Of all of Goddard’s junior scythes, Volta was the most admirable and the one Rowan most related to. He imagined they might be friends, once they were equals.
“Do you remember the pain when we beat you down?” Volta asked one afternoon, at the end of memory training.
“How could I ever forget?”
“There are three reasons for it,” Volta told him. “The first is to connect you with our ancestors, reliving the pain, and the fear of pain, because that’s what led to civilization and humanity’s advancement beyond its own mortality. The second is a rite of passage—something sorely missing in our passive world. But the third reason may be the most important: Being made to suffer pain frees us to feel the joy of being human.”
To Rowan it sounded like more empty platitudes—but Volta wasn’t like Goddard that way. He didn’t usually speak in lofty, meaningless ideas.
“I felt plenty of joy in my life without having to be beaten to a pulp,” Rowan told him.
Volta nodded. “You felt some—but just a shadow of what it can be. Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. The best we get is pleasantness.”
Rowan had no response to that, because it struck him as true. He had led a pleasant life. His biggest complaint was being marginalized. But didn’t everyone feel marginalized? They lived in a world where nothing anyone did really mattered. Survival was guaranteed. Income was guaranteed. Food was plentiful, and comfort was a given. The Thunderhead saw to everyone’s needs. When you need nothing, what else can life be but pleasant?
“You’ll get it eventually,” Scythe Volta told him. “Now that your pain nanites are dialed to zero, it’s inevitable.”
• • •
Esme remained a mystery. Sometimes she came down to eat with them, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes Rowan would catch her reading in various places around the mansion: mortal age books made of paper that had apparently been collected by the owner before he surrendered it all to Scythe Goddard. She would always hide from him whatever it was she was reading, as if embarrassed by it.
“When you become a scythe, are you going to stay?” she asked him.
“Maybe,” he told her. “And maybe not. Maybe I won’t get to be a scythe. So maybe I’ll be nowhere.”
She ignored that last part of his answer. “You should stay,” she told him.
The fact that this nine-year-old girl seemed to have a crush on him was one more complication Rowan didn’t need. She seemed to get everything she wanted. So did that mean she got him if she wanted that, too?
“My name’s Esmerelda, but everyone calls me Esme,” she told him when she followed him into the weight room one morning. Usually he’d be nice to younger kids—but since he was told he had to be nice, he suddenly found he didn’t want to be.
“I know, Scythe Goddard told me. You really shouldn’t be here—these weights can be dangerous.”
“And you’re not supposed to be here without Scythe Chomsky to spot you,” she pointed out, then sat down on a bench press showing no sign of leaving. “If you like, we could play a game or something when you’re done with your training.”
“I really don’t play games.”
“Not even cards?”
“Not even cards.”
“It must have been boring to be you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not boring anymore.”
“I’ll teach you to play cards after dinner tomorrow,” she announced. And since Esme got what she wanted, Rowan was there at the appointed time, whether he wanted to be there or not.
“Esme must be kept happy,” Scythe Volta reminded him after Rowan’s card game with her.
“Why?” Rowan asked. “Goddard doesn’t seem to care about anyone who doesn’t wear scythe robes, so why does he care about her?”
“Just be decent to her.”
“I’m decent to everyone,” Rowan pointed out. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a decent person.”
Volta laughed. “Hold on to that for as long as you can,” he said, as if doing so would be a very difficult thing.
• • •
Then came the day Scythe Goddard threw a new wrinkle into the taut fabric of Rowan’s life. It came without warning, as did all things Scythe Goddard threw at him. It was during killcraft. Today Rowan was working with two blades—daggers in each hand. Two blades were difficult for him; he favored his right and had little dexterity with his left. Scythe Goddard loved to make it difficult for Rowan in these training sessions and always judged him harshly when he didn’t rise to some imaginary level of perfection. Yet Rowan had been surprising himself. He had been getting better at wielding weaponry, and had even drawn forth mild admissions of approval from Goddard.
“Adequate,” Goddard would say, or, “That wasn’t entirely dismal.” High praise from the man.
And in spite of himself, Rowan felt satisfaction each time Goddard gave him approval. And he had to admit he was beginning to like wielding deadly weapons. It had grown on him like any other sport. Skill for the sake of skill, and then a sense of accomplishment when he did well.
On this particular day, things took a severe turn. It was evident from the moment he stepped out onto the lawn that something was up, because the dummies had not yet been put out. Instead, there were at least a dozen people milling about the lawn. He didn’t get it at first. He should have know that something was different because all the junior scythes were there today to watch his training. Usually it was just Goddard.
“What’s going on here?” Rowan asked. “I can’t do my training with people in the way—tell them to clear out.”
Scythe Rand laughed at him. “You’re charmingly dense,” she said.
“This ought to be fun,” said Scythe Chomsky, folding his arms, ready to relish what was to come.
And then Rowan finally understood. On the lawn the people weren’t milling around, they were standing, evenly spaced. They were waiting for him. There were to be no more dummies. Now his practice would be the real thing. Killcraft would now truly be killcraft.
“No,” Rowan said, shaking his head. “No, I can’t do this!”
“Oh, but you will,” Scythe Goddard said calmly.
“But . . . but I’m not ordained yet, I can’t glean!”
“You won’t be gleaning,” Scythe Volta said, putting a comforting hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “There are ambu-drones waiting for each of them. As soon as you’re done with them, they’ll be rushed to the nearest revival center, and be as good as new in a day or two.”
“But . . . but . . .” Rowan found he had no viable argument except to say, “It isn’t right!”
“Listen here,” Scythe Goddard said, stepping forward. “There are thirteen people out on that lawn. Every single one of them is here by choice, and every single one of them is being well paid for the service provided. They all know why they’re here, they know what their job is, they are more than happy to do it, and I expect the same from you. So do your job.”
Rowan pulled out his blades and looked at them. Those blades would not be cutting into cotton today, but into flesh.
“Hearts and jugulars,” Scythe Goddard told him. “Dispatch your subjects with speed. You will be timed.”
Rowan wanted to protest—insist that he couldn’t do it—but as much as his heart told him he couldn’t, his mind knew the truth.
Yes, he could.
He had been training for precisely this. All he had to do was dial his conscience down to zero. He knew he was capable of that, and it terrified him.
“You are to take down twelve of them,” Scythe Goddard told him, “and leave the last one alive.”
“Why leave the last?”
“Because I said so.”
“C’mon, we don’t have all day,” grumbled Chomsky. Volta threw Chomsky a withering glare, then spoke to Rowan with far more patience. “It’s just like jumping into a cold pool. The anticipation is much worse than the reality. Take the leap, and I promise all will be well.”
Rowan could leave.
He could drop his blades and go into the house. He could prove himself to be a failure here and now, and perhaps not have to endure any more of this. But Volta believed in him. And so did Goddard, even if he wouldn’t admit it aloud—for why would Goddard set this challenge before him if he didn’t believe Rowan would rise to it?
Rowan took a deep breath, gripped his blades tightly in both hands, and with a guttural war cry that drowned the alarms blaring in his soul, he launched himself forward.
There were men and there were women. The subjects represented different ages, ethnic mixes, and body types, from muscular to obese to gaunt. He yelled and screamed and grunted with every thrust, slice, and twist. He had trained well. The blades sunk in with perfect precision. Once he began, he found he couldn’t stop. Bodies fell, and he was on to the next, and the next. They didn’t fight back, they didn’t run in fear, they just stood there and took it. They were no different from the dummies. He was covered in blood. It stung his eyes; the smell was thick in his nostrils. Finally he came to the last one. It was a girl his age, and there was a look on her face of resignation bordering on sorrow. He wanted to end that sorrow. He wanted to complete what he had begun, but he overrode the brutal imperative of the hunter in him. He forced himself not to swing his blades.
“Do it,” she whispered. “Do it or I won’t get paid.”
But he dropped his blades to the grass. Twelve deadish, one left alive. He turned to the scythes, and they all began to applaud.
“Well done!” Scythe Goddard said, more pleased than Rowan had ever seen him. “Very well done!”
Ambu-drones began to descend from above, grasping his victims and spiriting them away to the nearest revival center. And Rowan found himself smiling. Something had torn loose inside of him. He didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not. And while part of him felt like falling to his knees and hurling up breakfast, another part of him wanted to howl to the moon like a wolf.