Scythe

by Neal Shusterman

  “Thank you,” said the girl, “but if I may say, luck plays no part. We’ve both trained long and have been taught well by our scythes.”

  “Very true,” Faraday said. They nodded respectful good-byes that bordered on bows, and left.

  After they were gone, Faraday turned to Rowan and Citra. “The girl will get her ring today,” he said. “The boy will be denied.”

  “How do you know?” asked Rowan.

  “I have friends on the bejeweling committee. The boy is smart, but too quick to anger. It’s a fatal flaw that cannot be tolerated.”

  As annoying as Rowan found the kid, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pity. “What happens to the apprentices that get denied?”

  “They are returned to their families to take up life where they left off.”

  “But life can never be the same after a year of training to be a scythe,” Rowan pointed out.”

  “True,” said Faraday, “but only good can come from a keen understanding of what it takes to be a scythe.”

  Rowan nodded, but thought, for a man of such wisdom, that seemed very naive. Scythe training was a scarring endeavor. Purposefully so, but it was scarring nonetheless.

  The rotunda became increasingly crowded with scythes, and the marble walls, floor, and dome made voices echo into a cacophony. Rowan tried to hear more individual conversations, but they were lost in the din. Faraday had told them that the great bronze doors to the assembly room would open promptly at seven a.m., and the scythes would be dismissed at the stroke of seven p.m. Twelve hours to accomplish any and all business. Anything left undone would have to wait four months until the next conclave.

  “In the early days,” Scythe Faraday told them as the doors opened to admit the throng, “a conclave would last for three days. But they discovered that after the first day, it became little more than arguments and posturing. There’s still plenty of that, but it’s curtailed. It behooves us all to move through the agenda quickly.”

  The chamber was a huge semicircle with a large wooden rostrum at the front where the High Blade sat, and slightly lower seats on either side for the Conclave Clerk, who kept records, and the Parliamentarian, who interpreted rules and procedures if any questions arose. Scythe Faraday had told them enough about the power structure of the Scythedom for Rowan to know that much.

  The first order of business, once everyone was settled, was the Tolling of the Names. One by one, in no particular order, the scythes came to the front to recite various names of people they had gleaned over the past four months.

  “We can’t recite them all,” Scythe Faraday told them. “With over three hundred scythes, it would be more than twenty-six thousand names. We are to choose ten. The ones we most remember, the ones who died most valiantly, the ones whose lives were the most notable.”

  After each name spoken, an iron bell was rung, solemn and resonant. Rowan was pleased to hear Scythe Faraday reciting Kohl Whitlock’s name as one of his chosen ten.

  • • •

  The Tolling of the Names got old very quickly for Citra. Even reduced to ten names each, the recitation lasted for almost two hours. It was noble that the scythes saw fit to pay homage to the gleaned, but if they only had twelve hours to complete three months worth of business, she didn’t see the sense of it.

  There was no written agenda, so there was no way for her and Rowan to know what came next, and Scythe Faraday only explained things as they happened.

  “When is our test? Will we be taken somewhere else for it?” Citra asked, but Faraday shushed her.

  After the Tolling of the Names, the next order of business was a ceremonial washing of the hands. The scythes all rose and lined up before two basins, one on either side of the rostrum. Again, Citra didn’t see the point. “All this ritual—it’s like something you’d see in a tone cult,” she said when Faraday returned to his seat, hands still damp.

  Faraday leaned over to her and whispered. “Don’t let any of the other scythes hear you say that.”

  “Do you feel clean after sticking your hands in water that a hundred other hands have been in?”

  Faraday sighed. “It brings solace. It binds us as a community. Do not belittle our traditions because one day they may be yours.”

  “Or not,” goaded Rowan.

  Citra shifted uncomfortably and grumbled. “It just seems like a waste of time.”

  Faraday must have known her real gripe was with not knowing when they would be presented to the conclave and taken away for their test. Citra was not a girl who could endure being in the dark for long. Perhaps that’s why Faraday made sure that she was. He was constantly poking at their weaknesses.

  Next, a number of scythes were singled out for showing bias in their gleanings. This held some interest for Citra, and gave her some insight as to how it all worked behind the scenes.

  One scythe had gleaned too few wealthy people. She was reprimanded and assigned to only glean the rich between now and the next conclave.

  Another scythe was found to have racial ratio issues. High on the Spanic, low on the Afric.

  “It’s due to the demographic where I live,” he pleaded. “People have a higher percentage of Spanic in their personal ratios.”

  High Blade Xenocrates was not swayed. “Then cast a wider net,” he said. “Glean elsewhere.”

  He was charged with bringing his ratios back into line or face being disciplined—which consisted of having future gleanings preapproved by the selection committee. Having one’s freedom to glean taken away was a humiliation that no scythe wanted.

  Sixteen scythes were taken to task. Ten were warned, six were disciplined. The oddest situation was a scythe who was far too pretty for his own good. He got called out for gleaning too many unattractive people.

  “What an idea,” one of the other scythes shouted out. “Imagine what a world it would be if we gleaned only ugly people!”

  That brought a round of laughter from the rest of the room.

  The scythe tried to defend himself, claiming the old adage, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but the High Blade wasn’t buying it. This was apparently his third such offense, so he was given permanent probation. He could live as a scythe but could not glean, “Until the next reptilian year,” the High Blade proclaimed.

  “That’s crazy,” Citra commented just loud enough for Rowan and Faraday to hear. “No one knows what animals future years will be named after. I mean, the last reptilian year was the Year of the Gecko and that was before I was born.”

  “Precisely!” said Faraday with a little bit of guilty glee. “Which means his punishment could end next year or never. Now he’ll spend his time lobbying the office of the Calendaria to name a year after the skink, or Gila monster, or some other reptile that has not yet been used.”

  Before they moved on from the disciplinary portion of the morning, there was one more scythe to be called out. It wasn’t a matter of bias, however.

  “I have before me an anonymous note,” the High Blade said, “which accuses Honorable Scythe Goddard of malfeasance.”

  A rumble throughout the room. Citra saw Scythe Goddard whisper to his inner circle of companions, then stood. “Of what sort of malfeasance am I being accused?’

  “Unnecessary cruelty in your gleaning.”

  “And yet this accusation comes anonymously!” said Goddard. “I cannot believe that a fellow scythe would show such cowardice. I demand that the accuser reveal his or herself.”

  More rumbles around the room. No one stood up, no one took responsibility.

  “Well then,” said Goddard, “I refuse to answer to an invisible accuser.”

  Citra expected High Blade Xenocrates to press the issue. After all, an accusation from a fellow scythe should be taken seriously—but the High Blade put the paper down and said, “Well, if there’s nothing more, we’ll take our midmorning break.”

  And the scythes, Earth’s grand bringers of death, began to file out into the rotunda for donuts and coffee.


  Once they were in the rotunda, Faraday leaned close to Citra and Rowan and said, “There was no anonymous accuser. I’m sure that Scythe Goddard accused himself.”

  “Why would he do that?” asked Citra.

  “To take the steam out of his enemies. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Now anyone who accuses him will be assumed to be the cowardly anonymous accuser. No one will go after him now.”

  • • •

  Rowan found himself less interested in the stagecraft and parrying within the assembly room as he was in the things that went on outside of it. He was already getting a feeling for the Scythedom and how it truly worked. The most important business did not occur within the bronze doors, but in the rotunda and dim alcoves of the building—of which there were many, probably for this exact purpose.

  The early morning conversations had been just small talk, but now, as the day progressed, Rowan could see a number of scythes congregating during break into small klatches, doing side deals, building alliances, pushing secret agendas.

  He overheard one group that was planning to propose a ban on remote detonators as a method of gleaning—not for any ethical reason, but because the gun lobby had made a sizeable contribution to a particular scythe. Another group was trying to groom one of the younger scythes for a position on the selection committee, so that he might sway gleaning choices when they needed those choices swayed.

  Power politics might have been a thing of the past elsewhere, but it was alive and seething in the Scythedom.

  Their mentor did not join any of the plotters. Faraday remained solitary and above petty politics, as did perhaps half of the scythes.

  “We know the schemes of the schemers,” he told Rowan and Citra as he negotiated a jelly donut. “They only get their way when the rest of us want them to.”

  Rowan made a point to observe Scythe Goddard. Many scythes approached him to talk. Others grumbled about him under their breath. His entourage of junior scythes were a multicultural bunch, in the old-school meaning of the word. While no one had pristine ethno-genetics anymore, his inner circle showed traits that leaned toward one ethnos or another. The girl in green seemed mildly PanAsian, the man in yellow had Afric leanings, the one in fiery orange was as Caucasoid as could be, and he himself leaned slightly toward the Spanic. He was clearly a scythe who wanted high visibility—even his grand gesture of ethnic balance was a visible one.

  Although Goddard never turned to look, Rowan had the distinct feeling that he knew Rowan was watching him.

  • • •

  For the rest of the morning, proposals were made and hotly debated in the assembly room. As Scythe Faraday had said, the schemers only prevailed when the more high-minded body of the Scythedom allowed. The ban on remote detonators was adopted—not because of bribes from the gun lobby, but because blowing people up was determined to be crude, cruel, and beneath the Scythedom. And the young scythe put forth for membership on the selection committee was voted down, because no one on that committee should be in anyone’s pocket.

  “I should like to be on a scythe committee one day,” Rowan said.

  Citra looked at him oddly. “Why are you talking like Faraday?”

  Rowan shrugged. “When in Rome . . .”

  “We’re not in Rome,” she reminded him. “If we were, we’d have a much cooler place for conclave.”

  Local restaurants vied for the chance to cater the conclave, so lunch was a buffet out in the rotunda even more sumptuous than the one at breakfast—and Faraday packed his plate, which was out of character for him.

  “Don’t think ill of him,” Scythe Curie told Rowan and Citra, her voice mellifluous, yet sharp at the same time. “For those of us who take our vow of austerity seriously, conclave is the only time we allow ourselves the luxury of fine food and drink. It reminds us that we’re human.”

  Citra, who had a one-track mind, took this as her opportunity to get information.

  “When will the apprentices be tested?” she asked.

  Scythe Curie smirked and brushed back her silky silver hair. “The ones who are hoping to receive their ring today were tested last night. As for all the others, you’ll be tested soon enough,” she said. Citra’s frustration made Rowan snicker, which earned him a glare from Citra.

  “Just shut up and stuff your face,” she said. Rowan was happy to oblige.

  • • •

  As focused as Citra was on the upcoming test, she began to wonder what in conclave she would miss when the apprentices were taken for testing. Like Rowan, she found conclave to be an education like none other. There were few people beyond scythes and their apprentices who ever witnessed this. And those others who did caught only a glimpse—such as the string of salespeople after lunch, who were each given ten minutes to expound the virtues of some weapon or poison they were trying to sell to the Scythedom, and more importantly the Weaponsmaster, who had the final decision over what the Scythedom purchased. They sounded like those awful people on info-holograms. “It dices, it slices! But wait! There’s more!”

  One salesperson was selling a digital poison that would turn the healing nanites in a person’s bloodstream into hungry little bastards that would devour the victim from the inside out in less than a minute. He actually used the word “victim,” which immediately soured the scythes. He was flatly dismissed by the Weaponsmaster.

  The most successful salesperson was offering a product called Touch of Quietude, which sounded more like a feminine hygiene product than a death delivery system. The woman selling it displayed a small pill—but not to give to the subject. The pill was for the scythe. “Take with water and within seconds your fingers will secrete a transdermal poison. Anyone you touch for the next hour will be instantly and painlessly gleaned.”

  The Weaponsmaster was so impressed, he came up to the stage to take a dose, then, in the ultimate demonstration, proceeded to glean the saleswoman. She sold fifty vials of the stuff to the Scythedom posthumously.

  The rest of the afternoon consisted of more discussion, arguments, and votes about policy. Scythe Faraday only found fit to voice his opinion once—when it came to forming an immunity committee.

  “It seems clear to me that there should be oversight for the granting of immunity, just as the selection committee provides oversight for gleaning.”

  Rowan and Citra were pleased to see that his opinion carried a great deal of weight. Several scythes who had initially voted against the forming of an immunity committee switched their vote. However, before a final tally was taken, High Blade Xenocrates announced that time had run out for legislative issues.

  “The subject will be at the top of our agenda for the next conclave,” he announced.

  A number of scythes applauded, but several rose up and shouted their grievous discontent at the issue being tabled. Scythe Faraday did not voice his own displeasure. He took a long breath in and out. “Interesting . . .” is all he said.

  This might have all pinged loudly on Rowan and Citra’s radar, had the High Blade not immediately announced that the next order of business was the apprentices.

  Citra found herself wanting to grip Rowan’s hand in anticipation and squeeze it until it was bloodless, but she restrained herself.

  Rowan, on the other hand, followed his mentor’s lead. He took a deep breath in, then out, and tried to let his anxiety wash from him. He had studied all he could study, learned all he could learn. He would do the best he could do. If he failed today there would be more than enough chances to redeem himself.

  “Good luck,” Rowan said to Citra.

  “You too,” she returned. “Let’s make Scythe Faraday proud!”

  Rowan smiled, and thought that Faraday might smile at Citra as well, but he didn’t. He just kept his gaze on Xenocrates.

  First, the candidates for Scythedom were called up. There were four whose apprenticeship was now complete. Having had their final test the evening before, there was nothing left but to ordain them. Or not, as the case may be. Word was
there was a fifth candidate who had failed the final test last night. He or she wasn’t even invited to conclave.

  Three rings were brought out, resting on red velvet pillows. The four looked to one another, now, aware that even though they had passed their final test, one of them would not be ordained and would be sent home in shame.

  Scythe Faraday turned to the scythe beside him and said, “Only one scythe gleaned himself since last conclave, and yet three are being confirmed today. . . . Has the population grown so drastically in three months that we need two additional scythes?”

  The three chosen apprentices were called one by one by Scythe Mandela, who presided over the bejeweling committee. As each knelt before him, he said something about each of them in turn, and then handed them their rings, which they slipped on their fingers and held to show the conclave—which responded for each of them with obligatory applause. Then they announced their Patron Historic, the luminary from history whom they would name themselves after. The conclave applauded with each announcement, accepting Scythes Goodall, Schrödinger, and Colbert into the MidMerican Scythedom.

  When the three had left the stage, the hot-tempered boy remained,  just as Scythe Faraday had said earlier in the day.  He stood alone after the applause died down. Then Scythe Mandela said, “Ransom Paladini, we have chosen not to ordain you as a scythe. Wherever life leads you, we wish you well.  You are dismissed.”

  He lingered for a few moments, as if thinking it might be a joke—or maybe one final test. Then, his lips pursed, his face turned red and he strode quickly up the center aisle in silence, pushing through the heavy bronze doors, their hinges complaining at his exit.

  “How awful,” said Citra. “At least they could applaud him for trying.”

  “There are no accolades for the unworthy,” Faraday said.

  “One of us will exit that way,” Rowan pointed out to her. He resolved that if it was him, he would take his time going down that aisle. He’d make eye contact and nod to as many scythes as he could on his way out. Were he to be ejected, he would leave that final conclave with dignity.