Scythe

by Neal Shusterman

  They strolled through galleries of the old masters in silence, punctuated only by the sound of their footfalls and the scythe’s occasional commentaries. “See how El Greco uses contrast to evoke emotional yearning.” “Look at the fluidity of motion in this Raphael—how it brings intensity to the visual story he tells.” “Ah! Seurat! Prophetic pointillism a century before the pixel!”

  Rowan was the first to ask the necessary question.

  “What does any of this have to do with us?”

  Scythe Faraday sighed in mild irritation, although he probably anticipated the question. “I am supplying you with lessons you won’t receive in school.”

  “So,” said Citra, “you pulled us out of our lives for some random art lesson? Isn’t that a waste of your valuable time?”

  The scythe laughed, and Rowan found himself wishing he had been the one to make him laugh.

  “What have you learned so far?” Scythe Faraday asked.

  Neither had a response, so he asked a different question.

  “What do you think our conversation would have been like had I brought you to the post-mortality galleries instead of these older ones?”

  Rowan ventured an answer. “Probably about how much easier on the eye post-mortal art is. “Easier and . . . untroubled.”

  “How about uninspired?” prompted the scythe.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” said Citra.

  “Perhaps. But now that you know what you’re looking for in this art of the dying, I want you to try to feel it.” And he led them to the next gallery.

  Although Rowan was sure he’d feel nothing, he was wrong.

  The next room was a large gallery with paintings hanging floor to ceiling. He didn’t recognize the artists, but that didn’t matter. There was a coherence to the work, as if it had been painted by the same soul, if not the same hand. Some works had a religious theme, others were portraits, and others simply captured the elusive light of daily life with a vibrancy that was missing in post-mortal art. Longing and elation, anguish and joy—they were all there, sometimes commingling in the same canvas. It was in some ways unsettling, but compelling as well.

  “Can we stay in this room a little longer?” Rowan asked, which made the scythe smile.

  “Of course we can.”

  The museum had opened by the time they were done. Other patrons gave them a wide berth. It reminded Rowan of the way they treated him in school. Citra still seemed to have no clue why Scythe Faraday had called them—but Rowan was beginning to have an idea.

  He took the kids to a diner, where the waitress sat them immediately and brought them menus, ignoring other customers to give them priority. Perk of the position. Rowan noticed that no one came in once they were seated. The restaurant would probably be empty by the time they left.

  “If you want us to provide you with information on people we know,” Citra said, as her food came, “I’m not interested.”

  “I gather my own information,” Scythe Faraday told her. “I don’t need a couple of kids to be my informants.”

  “But you do need us, don’t you?” Rowan said.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he talked about world population and the task of the world’s scythes, if not to level it, then to wrangle it to a reasonable ratio.

  “The ratio of population growth to the Thunderhead’s ability to provide for humanity requires that a certain number of people be gleaned each year,” he told them. “For that to happen, we’re going to need more scythes.”

  Then he produced from one of the many pockets hidden in his robe a scythe’s ring identical to the one he already wore. It caught the light in the room, reflecting it, refracting it, but never bending light into the heart of its dark core.

  “Three times a year, scythes meet at a great assembly called a conclave. We discuss the business of gleaning, and whether or not more scythes are needed in our region.”

  Citra now seemed to shrink in her chair. She finally got it. Although Rowan had suspected this, to actually see the ring made him shrink a bit, too.

  “The gems on scythe rings were made in those first post-mortal days by the early scythes,” Faraday said, “when society deemed that unnatural death needed to take the place of natural death. There were many more gems made than were needed at the time, for the founders of the Scythedom were wise enough to anticipate a need. When a new scythe is required, a gem is placed into a gold setting and is bestowed upon the chosen candidate.” He turned the ring in his fingers, pondering it, sending refracted light dancing around the room. Then he looked them in the eye—first Citra, then Rowan. “I just returned from Winter Conclave and have been given this ring so that I might take on an apprentice.”

  Citra backed away. “Rowan can do it. I’m not interested.”

  Rowan turned to her, wishing he had spoken. “What makes you think I am?”

  “I have chosen both of you!” Faraday said, raising his voice. “You will both learn the trade. But in the end, only one of you will receive the ring. The other may return home to his or her old life.”

  “Why would we compete for something that neither of us wants?” Citra asked.

  “Therein lies the paradox of the profession,” Faraday said. “Those who wish to have the job should not have it . . . and those who would most refuse to kill are the only ones who should.”

  He put the ring away, and Rowan let out his breath, not even realizing he had been holding it.

  “You are both made of the highest moral fiber,” Faraday told them, “and I believe the high ground on which you stand will compel you into my apprenticeship—not because I force it upon you, but because you choose it.”

  Then he left without paying the bill, because no bill was, or would ever be, brought to a scythe.

  • • •

  The nerve! To think he could impress them with airs of culture, and then reel them into his sick little scheme. There was no way Citra would ever, under any circumstances, throw away her life by becoming a taker of other people’s lives.

  She told her parents what had happened when they got home that evening. Her father embraced her and she cried into his arms for being given the terrible proposition. Then her mother said something that Citra was not expecting.

  “Will you do it?” she asked.

  The fact that she could even ask that question was more of a shock than seeing the ring held out to her that morning.

  “What?”

  “It’s a difficult choice, I know,” her father said. “We’ll support you either way.”

  She looked at them as if she had never truly seen them before that moment. How could her parents know her so little that they would think she’d become a scythe’s apprentice? She didn’t even know what to say to them.

  “Would you . . . want me to?” She found herself terrified of their answer.

  “We want what you want, honey,” her mother said. “But look at it in perspective: A scythe wants for nothing in this world. All of your needs and desires would be met, and you’d never have to fear being gleaned.”

  And then something occurred to Citra. “You’d never have worry about being gleaned either. . . . A scythe’s family is immune from gleaning for as long as that scythe’s alive.”

  Her father shook his head. “It’s not about our immunity.”

  And she realized he was telling the truth. “It’s not about yours . . . it’s about Ben’s . . . ,” Citra said.

  To that, they didn’t have an answer. The memory of Scythe Faraday’s unexpected intrusion into their home was still a dark specter haunting them. At the time, they hadn’t known why he was there. He could very well have been there to glean Citra or Ben. But if Citra became a scythe, they never needed to fear an unexpected visitor again.

  “You want me to spend my life killing people?”

  Her mother looked away. “Please, Citra, it’s not killing, it’s gleaning. It’s important. It’s necessary. Sure, nobody likes it, but everyone agrees it has to happen and that so
meone has to do it. Why not you?”

  Citra went to bed early that night, before supper, because her appetite was a casualty of the day. Her parents came to her door several times, but she told them to go away.

  She had never been sure what path her life would take. She assumed she would go to college, get a degree in something pleasant, then settle into a comfortable job, meet a comfortable guy, and have a nice, unremarkable life. It’s not that she longed for such an existence, but it was expected. Not just of her, but of everyone. With nothing to really aspire to, life had become about maintenance. Eternal maintenance.

  Could she possibly find greater purpose in the gleaning of human life? The answer was still a resolute “No!”

  But if that were the case, then why did she find it so hard to sleep?

  • • •

  For Rowan, the decision wasn’t quite so difficult. Yes, he hated the thought of being a scythe—it sickened him—but what sickened him more was the thought of just about anyone else he knew doing it. He didn’t see himself as morally superior to anyone—but he did have a keener sense of empathy. He felt for people, sometimes more than he felt for himself. It’s what drove him into Kohl’s gleaning. It’s what brought him to Tyger’s side each and every time he splat.

  And Rowan already knew what it was like to be a scythe—to be treated separate and apart from the rest of the world. He was living that now, but could he bear to live it forever? Maybe he wouldn’t have to. Scythes got together, didn’t they? They had conclaves three times a year and must befriend one another. It was the world’s most elite club. No, he didn’t want to be a part of it, but he had been called to it. It would be a burden, but also the ultimate honor.

  He didn’t tell his family that day, because he didn’t want them to sway his decision. Immunity for all of them? Of course they’d want him to accept. He was loved, but only as one among a group of other beloved things. If his sacrifice could save the rest, the greater familial good would be served.

  In the end it was the art that did it. The canvases haunted his dreams that night. What must life have been like in the Age of Mortality? Full of passions, both good and bad. Fear giving rise to faith. Despair giving meaning to elation. They say even the winters were colder and the summers were warmer in those days.

  To live between the prospects of an unknown eternal sky and a dark, enveloping Earth must have been glorious—for how else could it have given rise to such magnificent expression? No one created anything of value anymore—but if, by gleaning, he could bring back a hint of what once was, it might be worth it.

  Could he find it in himself to kill another human being? Not just one, but many, day after day, year after year, until he reached his own eternity? Scythe Faraday believed he could.

  The following morning, before he left for school, he told his mother that a scythe had invited him to become his apprentice and that he’d be dropping out of school to accept the position.

  “If you think that’s best,” she said.

  * * *

  I had my cultural audit today. It happens only once a year, but it’s never any less stressful. This year, when they crunched each cultural index from those I gleaned over the past twelve months, I, thankfully, came up well within accepted parameters:

  20 percent Caucasoid

  18 percent Afric

  20 percent PanAsian

  19 percent Mesolatino

  23 percent Other

  Sometimes it’s hard to know.  A person’s index is considered private, so we can only go by visible traits, which are no longer as obvious as they had been in past generations. When scythes’ numbers become lopsided, they are disciplined by the High Blade, and are assigned their gleanings for the next year rather than being allowed to choose for themselves. It is a sign of shame.

  The index is supposed to keep the world free from cultural and genetic bias, but aren’t there underlying factors that we can’t escape? For instance, who decided that the first number of one’s genetic index would be Caucasoid?

  —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

  * * *

  4

  Learner’s Permit to Kill

  Forget what you think you know about scythes. Leave behind your preconceived notions. Your education begins today.

  Citra could not believe she was actually going through with this. What secret, self-destructive part of herself had asserted its will over her? What had possessed her to accept the apprenticeship? Now there was no backing out. Yesterday—on the third day of the new year—Scythe Faraday had come to her apartment and had given a year’s immunity to her father and brother. He added several months to her mother’s so their immunity would all expire at the same time. Of course, if Citra was chosen to be a full scythe, their immunity would become permanent.

  Her parents were tearful when she left. Citra wondered whether they were tears of sorrow, joy, or relief. Perhaps a combination of all three.

  “We know you’ll do great things in this world,” her father had said. And she wondered what about bringing death could be considered great.

  Do not be so arrogant as to think you have a license to glean. The license is mine and mine alone. At most you have . . . shall we say . . . a learner’s permit. I will, however, require at least one of you to be present at each of my gleanings. And if I ask you to assist, you will.

  Citra unceremoniously withdrew from school and said good-bye to friends in awkward little conversations.

  “It’s not like I won’t be around, I just won’t be at school anymore.” But who was she kidding? Accepting this apprenticeship put her on the outside of an impenetrable wall. It was both demoralizing yet heartening to know that life would go on without her. And it occurred to her that being a scythe was like being the living dead. In the world, but apart from it. Just a witness to the comings and goings of others.

  We are above the law, but that does not mean we live in defiance of it. Our position demands a level of morality beyond the rule of law. We must strive for incorruptibility, and must assess our motives on a daily basis.

  While she did not wear a ring, Citra was given an armband to identify her as a scythe’s apprentice. Rowan had one, too—bright green bands bearing the curved blade of a farmer’s scythe above an unblinking eye—the double symbol of the scythehood. That symbol would become a tattoo on the arm of the chosen apprentice. Not that anyone would ever see the tattoo, for scythes are never seen in public without their robes.

  Citra had to tell herself that there was an out. She could fail to perform. She could be a lousy apprentice. She could sabotage herself so completely that Honorable Scythe Faraday would be forced to choose Rowan and return her to her family at the end of the year. The problem was that Citra was very bad at doing things half-fast. It would be much harder for her to fail than to succeed.

  I will not tolerate any romantic notions between the two of you, so banish the thought from your mind now.

  Citra had looked over at Rowan when the scythe said that, and Rowan had shrugged.

  “Not a problem,” he said, which irritated Citra. At the very least he could have voiced some minor disappointment.

  “Yeah,” Citra said. “No hope of that, with or without the rule.”

  Rowan had just grinned at that, which had made her even more annoyed.

  You shall study history, the great philosophers, the sciences. You will come to understand the nature of life and what it means to be human before you are permanently charged with the taking of life. You will also study all forms of killcraft and become experts.

  Like Citra, Rowan found himself unsettled by his decision to take this on, but he was not going to show it. Especially not to Citra. And in spite of the blasé attitude he showed her, he was, in fact, attracted to her. But he knew even before the scythe forbade them that such a pursuit could not end well. They were adversaries, after all.

  Like Citra, Rowan had stood beside Scythe Faraday as the man held out his ring to each member of his family,
offering them immunity. His brothers, sisters, half-siblings, grandma, and her all-too-perfect husband, who Rowan suspected might actually be a bot. Each in turn knelt respectfully and kissed the ring, transmitting their DNA to the worldwide immunity database in the Scythedom’s own special cloud separate and apart from the Thunderhead.

  The rule was that all members of an apprentice’s household would receive immunity for one year, and there were nineteen people in Rowan’s sprawling household. His mother had mixed feelings, because now no one would move out for at least a year, to make sure their immunity would become permanent once Rowan received his scythe’s ring—if he got the ring.

  The only glitch had been when the ring vibrated, giving off a little alarm, refusing immunity to his grandmother’s new husband because he was a bot after all.

  You shall live as I do. Modestly, and subsisting on the goodwill of others. You will take no more than you need, and waste nothing. People will attempt to buy your friendship. They will lavish things upon you. Accept nothing but the barest of human necessities.

  Faraday had brought Rowan and Citra to his home to begin their new lives. It was a small bungalow in a rundown part of the city that Rowan hadn’t even known existed. “People playing at poverty,” he had told them, because no one was impoverished anymore. Austerity was a choice, for there were always those who shunned the plenty of the post-mortal world.

  Faraday’s home was Spartan. Little decoration. Unimpressive furniture. Rowan’s room had space for only a bed and a small dresser. Citra, at least, had a window, but the view was of a brick wall.

  I will not tolerate childish pastimes or vapid communications with friends. Commitment to this life means leaving behind your old life as fully as possible. When, a year from now, I choose between you, the unchosen one can return to his or her former life easily enough. But for now, consider that life a part of your past.

  Once they were settled in, he didn’t allow them to brood over their circumstances. As soon as Rowan had unpacked his bags, the scythe announced that they were going to the market.