The Toll Page 22

  Jeri half expected her to order the ship to turn around and go back for him. If she did, they’d have to oblige, for she was a scythe. But she didn’t. She was wise enough to know that it would only make matters worse.

  “I cannot, for the life of me, understand your devotion to Scythe Lucifer,” Jeri dared to say.

  “You know nothing about it.”

  “I know more than you think. I was there with Possuelo when we opened the vault. I saw you in each other’s arms. It was the kind of intimacy not even death could hide.”

  Anastasia averted her gaze. “We shed our clothes so the cold would kill us before we suffocated.”

  Jeri smiled. “I suspect that is only a half-truth.”

  She turned and considered Jeri for a long moment, then changed the subject. “Jerico—that’s an unusual name. I seem to recall a mortal-age story involving a wall coming down. Are you a collapser of walls?”

  “You could say I find things in the ruins of walls that have already fallen,” Jeri told her. “Honestly, though, it’s a family name that has no bearing on the story of Jericho. But if you find it off-putting, you can call me Jeri. Everyone does.”

  “Okay. And what are your pronouns, Jeri?”

  Jeri found it refreshing that she asked so directly. There were still people who were too awkward to ask—as if Jeri was being accidentally ambiguous, and not intentionally so.

  “He, she, they, zhey—pronouns are tiresome and lazy things,” Jeri said. “I’d much rather call a person by name. But to answer your deeper question, I’m both male and female. It comes with being Madagascan.”

  Anastasia nodded knowingly. “You must find us binary people strange and confusing.”

  “I did when I was younger. I never met someone born to a single gender until I was well into my teens. But I’ve come to accept, and even appreciate, your quirky rigidity.”

  “So, you see yourself as both—but I imagine there must be times when you’re more one than another.”

  Not only direct, but insightful, too, Jeri thought, liking this resurrected scythe more and more. She asks the right questions.

  “You could say it’s dictated by the heavens,” Jeri told her. “When skies are clear, I choose to be a woman. When they are not, I am a man.” Jeri turned to take in the sunlight shimmering on the surface of the sea. It was marked by the shadows of the occasional cloud, but right now the ship did not fall beneath one of those shadows. “At this moment in time, I am a woman.”

  “I see,” she said, without the judgment that some might show. “My father—who’s a scholar of the mortal age—said that the sun is almost always seen as masculine in mythology, and of course there’s the man in the moon. Choosing to be feminine in their light creates a balance. There’s a natural yin and yang to it.”

  “And to you as well,” Jeri said. “After all, turquoise is symbolically the color of balance.”

  Anastasia smiled. “I didn’t know that. I chose it because it’s the color my brother wanted me to be.”

  An inner shadow seemed to cross her face. A pang at the thought of her brother. Jeri decided it was too personal a heartache to delve into, and allowed her privacy on the matter.

  “Does it bother you,” she asked, “to always be at the mercy of the weather? I would think that someone like you would want to be subservient to as few things as possible. Besides, it must be awfully inconvenient on partially cloudy days like this.”

  As if on cue, the sun slipped behind a small cloud, then out again. Jeri laughed. “Yes, it can be inconvenient, but I’ve gotten used to it—embraced it, even. That unpredictability has become part of who I am.”

  “I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to have been born in the Madagascan region,” Anastasia said. “Not that I’m really interested in being a man—but I wonder what it would have been like to explore both sides when I was too young to know the difference.”

  “That’s the whole point of it,” Jeri told her. “And the reason why so many people go to Madagascar as a place to raise their children.”

  Anastasia considered it a few moments more. “I suppose, if I divided my time between land and sea as you do, I might choose to be one way on land, and another at sea. That way my gender wouldn’t be at the mercy of the winds.”

  “Well, I would enjoy your company either way.”

  “Hmmm,” Anastasia said coyly. “Flirting with me in sunlight. It makes me wonder if you’d also do that in a storm.”

  “One of the benefits of being Madagascan is that we see people as people. When it comes to attraction, gender is never part of the equation.” Then Jeri looked up as the light dimmed slightly. “You see? The sun has passed behind a cloud again, and nothing has changed.”

  Then Anastasia stepped back from the railing, a gentle smirk still on her face. “I think I’ve had enough of both sunlight and shadows for now. Good day, Captain.” Then she turned to go below, her robe fluttering behind her like a loose sail in a gentle breeze.

  26 A Receptacle for the World’s Hatred

  Rowan did not know any of the things that had transpired during his three-year absence. Unlike Citra, no one briefed him. Anything he picked up, he learned in passing. He did know that Goddard was in charge of most of North Merica now—which wasn’t good for anyone and was definitely not good for Rowan.

  Now he stood tied to a glass column in the center of Goddard’s crystal chalet. Wasn’t there an expression about glass houses and throwing stones? Well, if he had a stone, he wouldn’t throw it. He’d hide it until he could use it for something more effective.

  He had been revived the day before, just as High Blade Pickford said he would be. Death was not good enough for Scythe Lucifer. Knowing Goddard, his end would be filled with much pomp and pageantry.

  Goddard came to see him with Scythe Rand by his side as always. The expression on Goddard’s face was not one of fury. It was actually welcoming. Warm—if a cold-blooded thing could ever be said to have a warm expression. It threw Rowan for a loop. Made him uncertain. Rand, on the other hand, looked worried, and Rowan knew why.

  “My dearest Rowan,” Goddard said, arms wide as if moving in for a hug, yet stopping a few yards away.

  “Surprised to see me?” Rowan asked, as flip as he could force himself to be.

  “Nothing surprises me about you, Rowan,” Goddard said. “But I’ll admit I’m impressed that you managed to come back after the sinking of Endura.”

  “Which you sank.”

  “On the contrary,” Goddard said. “You sank it. That’s what the record shows and will always show.”

  If he was trying to get a rise out of Rowan, it wasn’t working. He had already made his peace with bad publicity. When he chose to become Scythe Lucifer, he knew he’d be hated. Of course, he just expected it to be hatred among scythes. He never thought he’d be despised by the rest of the world.

  “You seem happy to see me,” Rowan observed. “That’s probably because of the physiology of the body you stole. Tyger’s body reacting to seeing his best friend.”

  “Perhaps,” said Goddard, glancing at Tyger’s hands, as if they might actually grow mouths and say something to him. “But the rest of me is happy to see you as well! You see, as a boogeyman, Scythe Lucifer is a nuisance. But as an actual man, he’s someone I can use for the betterment of humankind.”

  “The betterment of Goddard, you mean.”

  “What’s good for me is good for the world—you must realize that by now,” Goddard said. “I see the larger picture, Rowan. I always have. And now, by showing the world that Scythe Lucifer is subject to judgment, it will help people to rest a little easier.”

  Through all of this, Scythe Rand said nothing. She had taken a seat and was watching. Waiting to see what Rowan would do. What accusations he’d make. After all, she was the one who’d set Rowan free on Endura. He could be quite a fly in her ointment. But that would be no better than throwing a stone.

  “If you’re hoping to be remember
ed, don’t worry, you will be. Once you’ve been gleaned, your name will be an eternal receptacle for the world’s hatred. You’re infamous, Rowan—you should embrace that! It’s the only fame you’ll ever have, and much more than you deserve. Consider it a gift for all we’ve been to each other.”

  “You really are enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, immensely,” admitted Goddard. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve stood here pondering all the ways I could torment you!”

  “Who will you torment when I’m gone?”

  “I’m sure I’ll find someone. Or maybe I won’t need to. Maybe you’re the last thorn in my side I’ll ever have to deal with.”

  “Naah—there’s always another thorn.”

  Goddard clapped his hands together, truly tickled. “I have so missed these conversations with you!”

  “You mean the ones where you gloat, and I’m tied up?”

  “You see? The way you get to the heart of the matter is always so refreshing. So entertaining. I’d keep you as a house pet, if I didn’t fear you’d somehow escape and burn me to a crisp in my sleep.”

  “I would, and I would,” Rowan told him.

  “I have no doubt. Well, rest assured you won’t be escaping today. We no longer have the blunderings of Scythe Brahms to deal with.”

  “Why? Was he devoured by sharks like the rest of them?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he was,” Goddard said, “but he was dead before they got to him. Punishment for having allowed you to escape.”

  “Right.” Rowan said nothing more about it. But he did catch Rand out of the corner of his eye shifting in her chair as if it had suddenly grown hot.

  Goddard came closer to him. His voice became softer. “You might not believe this, but I really have missed you, Rowan.” There was an honesty to this simple statement that transcended Goddard’s habitual showmanship. “You’re the only one who dares to speak back to me anymore. I have adversaries, yes, but they’re all pushovers. Easily bested. You were different from the beginning.”

  He took a step back and looked Rowan over, appraising him, the way one might appraise a faded painting that had lost its allure. “You could have been my first underscythe,” Goddard said. “An heir to the world scythedom—and make no mistake, there will be a single world scythedom when I’m done with it. That would have been your future.”

  “If only I had ignored my conscience.”

  Goddard shook his head in pity. “Conscience is a tool, just like any other. If you don’t wield it, it wields you—and from what I can see, it has bludgeoned you senseless. No, the world needs the unity that I offer far more than it needs your simplistic understanding of right and wrong.”

  The thing about Goddard was that he always came close enough to making sense that it was demoralizing. He could twist your own thoughts until they were no longer yours, but his. That’s what made him so dangerous.

  Rowan found his defiance and fortitude draining away. Was Goddard right about anything? A voice inside him said no, but that voice was spiraling deep into its shell.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Rowan asked.

  Goddard leaned close and whispered in his ear.

  “A reckoning.”

  * * *

  Scythe Rand thought all this was behind her. She had been on one of her construct-sanctum excursions when word came that Scythe Lucifer was alive and in Amazonia. The mission to retrieve him from the Amazonians took place without her knowledge. He was already en route when Goddard told her the “glorious news.”

  It was terrible timing. With more warning, she would have found a way to glean him before he reached Goddard, if only to keep his mouth shut.

  But here he was, and his mouth stayed shut anyway. At least about her. Did he keep the secret just to see her squirm? Ayn wondered what his game was.

  This time Goddard wasn’t so cavalier as to leave Rowan alone in his room. Two guards were assigned to be in there with him. They were ordered to keep their distance, and their eyes on him at all times.

  “You’ll check on him every hour,” Goddard told Ayn. “To see that he hasn’t loosened his restraints or compromised the guards.”

  “You should render them deaf, so he can’t subvert them,” she suggested. It was meant as a joke, but Goddard took it seriously.

  “Sadly, they’d heal within an hour.”

  So instead of deafening the guards, silence was achieved the old-fashioned way. Rowan was gagged. However, when Ayn came to check on Rowan that afternoon, he had managed to work the gag off. He was all smiles in spite of being practically hog-tied.

  “Hi, Ayn,” he said brightly. “Having a good day?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” she quipped back. “Every day’s a good day since Goddard became Overblade.”

  “We’re sorry, Your Honor,” said one of the guards. “Since we were ordered to keep our distance, we couldn’t replace the gag. Perhaps you can do it.”

  “What’s he been saying?”

  “Nothing,” said the other guard. “He’s been singing a song that was popular a few years ago. He tried to get us to sing along, but we didn’t.”

  “Good,” said Ayn. “I applaud your restraint.”

  Through all this, Rowan’s smile didn’t fade. “You know, Ayn, I could have told Goddard that you were the one who set me free back on Endura.”

  Just like that. He just laid it out there for the two guards to hear.

  “Lying will get you nowhere,” she said for the sake of the guards, then ordered them both to wait outside the room—which, in a place where so many of the internal walls were still clear glass, didn’t hide anything from view, but at least the room was soundproof once the door closed.

  “I don’t think they believed you,” Rowan said. “You really didn’t sell it.”

  “You’re right,” said Ayn. “Which means I’ll have to glean them now. Their deaths are on your hands.”

  “Your blade, not mine,” he said.

  She took a moment to glance at the two guards, oblivious on the other side of the glass wall. The problem wasn’t gleaning them but hiding the fact that it was her doing. She’d have to order some low-level scythe to do it, and then persuade the scythe to self-glean—and all in such a way that it wouldn’t seem suspicious. What a mess.

  “Setting you free was the worst decision I ever made.”

  “Not the worst,” Rowan said. “Not even close.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Goddard? What possible reason could you have?”

  Rowan shrugged. “You did me a favor, and I returned it. Now we’re even. And besides,” he added. “You undermined him once. Maybe you’ll do it again.”

  “Things have changed.”

  “Have they? I still don’t see him treating you the way he should. Has he ever told you what he told me today? That you’d be the heir to the world scythedom? No? Seems to me that he treats you the way he treats everyone else. Like a servant.”

  Ayn took a deep breath, suddenly feeling very much alone. In most things, she enjoyed being a party of one, but this was different. What she really felt was a complete lack of allies. Like everyone in the world was an enemy. And maybe they were. She hated the fact that this smug boy could make her feel that way. “You’re much more dangerous than he gives you credit for,” she told him.

  “But you’re still here listening to me. Why?”

  She didn’t want to consider the question. Instead she ran through her mind all the ways she could glean him right then and there, and damn the consequences. But if she gleaned him, she knew it wouldn’t take. There was no way to render him unrevivable there in the penthouse, which meant Goddard would just bring him back to face the very specific judgment he had planned. And then, when he was revived, maybe Rowan would tell Goddard everything. She was bound just as completely as Rowan was.

  “Not that it matters, but I just want to know,” Rowan said. “Do you agree with everything he does? Do you think he’s taking the world in the
right direction?”

  “There is no right direction. There’s only a direction that makes things better for our kind, and directions that don’t.”

  “By ‘our kind,’ do you mean scythes?”

  “What else would I mean?”

  “The scythes were meant to make the world better for everyone. Not the other way around.”

  If he thought she cared, he was barking up the wrong tree. Ethics and morality were the hobgoblins of the old guard. Her conscience was clear, because she had none, and had always taken pride in that.

  “He means to publicly end you,” she told Rowan. “And by publicly, I mean in a way that will leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that Scythe Lucifer is gone forever. Vanquished and extinguished for all time.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I will not mourn you,” Rand told him, “and when you’re gone, I’ll be relieved.”

  He accepted it as true, because it was. “You know, Scythe Rand—there’s going to come a point when Goddard’s ego gets so far out of control that even you can see the danger of it—but by then he’ll be so powerful, there won’t be anyone left to challenge him.”

  Ayn wanted to deny it, but she felt gooseflesh rising. Her own physiology telling her that there was truth in what he said. No, she wouldn’t mourn Scythe Lucifer. But once he was gone, there would still be plenty to worry about.

  “You really are just like him,” she said. “You both twist people’s minds until they don’t know which way is up. So you’ll excuse me if I never speak to you again.”

  “You will,” Rowan said with absolute certainty. “Because after he ends me, he’ll make you dispose of whatever’s left of me, the way you disposed of what was left of Tyger. And then, when no one’s listening, you’ll snipe at my charred bones, just so you can have the last word. Maybe you’ll even spit on them. But it won’t make you feel any better.”

  And it was infuriating. Because she knew he was right on every count.