Scythe

by Neal Shusterman

  “Search all you want,” said the second scythe, “but if you break anything—”

  She never got to finish the thought, because Bello, overzealous as ever, jabbed her with a jolt baton that left her unconscious.

  “Was that really necessary?” chided Scythe Curie. “It’s me you have a gripe with, not poor Eva.”

  On a hunch, San Martín went out the back door and sure enough, found telltale footprints in the snow.

  “She’s on foot!” he told Bello. “¡Apurate! She can’t have gotten far.” Scythe Bello launched into pursuit like a bloodhound, heading down the snowy hillside, disappearing into the trees.

  San Martín went back inside, hurrying to the front door. The road wound down that hill. If Bello couldn’t catch her on foot, perhaps San Martín could head her off in the car. Scythe Curie, however, stood in the doorway, barring his way. He raised his weapon again, and in response, she pulled out her own; a handgun with a stubby muzzle wide enough to fit a golf ball in the barrel. A mortar pistol. He might as well have had a pea shooter against that thing, but he didn’t lower his weapon, no matter how outclassed it was.

  “I have special permission from our High Blade to fire on you if necessary,” he warned her.

  “And I have no permission from anyone,” said Scythe Curie, “but I am more than happy to do the same.”

  They held their standoff for more heartbeats than felt advisable, then Scythe Curie turned her gun aside and fired out the front door.

  An explosion blew in the front windows of the cabin, the shock wave knocking San Martín to the ground. . . . And yet Scythe Curie, still in the doorway, barely flinched. San Martín scrambled to the door to see that the blast from the mortar pistol had turned his car into a bonfire.

  Then she fired again, this time blowing up her own car.

  “Well now,” she said, “I suppose you’ll have to stay for lunch.”

  He looked at the two flaming vehicles and sighed, knowing he’d be a laughingstock for his failure today. He looked at Scythe Curie—her steely gray eyes, her calm control of the situation—and he realized he never really stood a chance against the Marquesa de la Muerte. There wasn’t much he could do but glare at her in heartfelt disapproval.

  “Very bad!” he said, wagging a finger. “Very, very bad.”

  * * *

  . . . Yet even in dreams I often find myself gleaning.

  I have one dream that recurs far too often. I am walking on an unfamiliar street that I feel I should know, but don’t. I have a pitchfork, which I’ve never used in real life; its awkward tines are not well suited for gleaning, and when it strikes it reverberates, giving off a sound that is something between ringing and moaning, like the numbing vibration of a Tonist bident.

  There is a woman before me whom I must glean. I jab at her, yet the pitchfork fails to do the job. Her wounds heal instantaneously. She is not upset or frightened. Nor is she amused. She is simply resigned to stand there, allowing me to futilely attempt to end her life. She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice is soft and her words are drowned out by the fork’s ghastly moans, so I never hear her.

  And I always wake up screaming.

  —From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

  * * *

  32

  Troubled Pilgrimage

  All publicars are on the grid, but scythes can’t track their movements until their navigational data is dropped into the backbrain. That happens every sixty minutes, so that’s how often you’ll have to change cars.

  Scythe Curie’s instructions had come at Citra quickly—she only hoped she could remember them all. She could do this. Her apprenticeship had taught her to be self-sufficient and resourceful. She ditched the first publicar at a small town right on time. She was worried that there might not be as many vacant publicars in the Chilargentine Region, especially this remote an area, but the Thunderhead was remarkable at projecting local need. In all things, there always seemed to be a supply to fit the demand.

  She had already changed into the coarse Tonist frock and had pulled its hood over her head. It was remarkable how people avoided her.

  Vehicle changes every hour meant that her pursuers were always right behind her. She realized she had to cut a weaving course, like cargo ships in mortal-age wartime, to throw them off her path and keep them from anticipating where she’d be next. For over a day she could never sleep for more than an hour at a time, and several instances when there was only road and no civilization for long stretches, she had to be crafty, ditching the car before arriving in town, where Chilargentine scythes and officers of the local BladeGuard were already waiting for her. She actually walked right past one scythe, certain she’d be caught, but she was smart enough to cross downwind of his DNA detector. The fact that the scythes themselves were supervising the hunt and not just leaving it to the BladeGuard made Citra feel all the more terrified, yet oddly important, too.

  Once you reach Buenos Aires, take a hypertrain north, across Amazonia to the city of Caracas. As soon as you cross the border into Amazonia, you’ll be safe. They won’t lift a finger to help Xenocrates, or to detain you.

  Citra knew the reason for this from her historical studies. Too many scythes from other regions glean out of their jurisdiction while on vacation in Amazonia. There’s no law against it, but it has made the Amazonian Scythedom uncooperative and openly obstructionist when it comes to assisting scythes from any other region.

  The problem was the train in Buenos Aires. They’d be waiting for her in force at every train station and airport. She was saved by a group of Tonists headed to Isthmus.

  “We seek the Great Fork in the umbilical between north and south,” they told her, thinking she was one of them. “There are rumors it is hidden in an ancient engineering work. We believe it could be sealed within one of the gates of the Panama Canal.”

  It took all her will not to laugh.

  “Will you join us, sister?”

  And so she did, just long enough to board the train north right under the noses of more watchful eyes than she could count, holding her breath—not out of fear, but so she wouldn’t trip any DNA detectors in the station.

  There were seven Tonists in the group. Apparently, this branch of the cult only traveled in groups of seven or twelve, as per musical mathematics—but they were willing to break the rule and add her to their number. Their accent suggested they weren’t from Merican continents, but somewhere in EuroScandia.

  “Where have your journeys taken you?” one of them asked, a man who seemed the leader. He smiled whenever he spoke, which made him all the more off-putting.

  “Here and there,” she told him.

  “What is your quest?”

  “My quest?”

  “Don’t all wandering pilgrims have quests?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I . . . seek an answer to the burning question: Is it A-flat or G-sharp?”

  And one of the others said, “Don’t even get me started!”

  There were no windows, for there was no scenery to see in the subsurface vacuum tube. Citra had traveled by air and on standard maglev trains, but the narrow, claustrophobic nature of a hypertrain made her uneasy.

  The Tonists, who must have been used to all sorts of travel, weren’t bothered. They discussed legends, debating which were true and which were false, and which were somewhere between.

  “We’ve been from the Pyramids in Israebia to the Great Wall of PanAsia in search of clues to the Great Fork’s whereabouts,” their leader said. “It’s the pilgrimage that matters. I doubt any of us would know what to do if we actually found it.”

  Once the train reached a cruising speed of eight hundred miles per hour, Citra excused herself to use the restroom, where she splashed water on her face, trying not to let exhaustion overtake her. She had forgotten to lock the door. Had she done that, her journey might have played out much differently.

  A man burst in on her. Her initial thought was just that he didn’t know someone was there, but b
efore she could turn—before she could do much of anything—he had a gold-edged blade at her throat, positioned to do the most damage.

  “You have been selected for gleaning,” he said, speaking in Common, but with a pronounced accent that must have been Portuzonian, which was the primary language of Amazonia. His robe was a deep forest green, and she remembered reading somewhere that scythes of that region all wore the same green robe.

  “You’re making a mistake!” Citra said, before he could slice open her neck.

  “Then tell me my mistake,” he said. “But be quick about it.”

  She tried to come up with something that would stay his hand other than the truth, but she realized there was nothing else. “I’m a scythe’s apprentice. If you tried to glean me I would just be revived, and you would be disciplined for not checking your ring first to see if I had immunity.”

  He smiled. “It is as I thought. You’re the one they’re all looking for.” He took the blade away from her neck. “Listen to me carefully. There are Chilargentine scythes aboard this train disguised as regular passengers. You can’t avoid them, but if you wish to remain out of their clutches, I suggest you come with me.”

  Citra’s instinct was to tell him no, and that she’d be fine on her own. But her judgment pulled rank on instinct, and she went with him. He led her to the next car, where, even though the train was crowded, there was an empty seat beside him. He introduced himself as Scythe Possuelo of Amazonia.

  “What now?” Citra asked.

  “We wait.”

  Citra pulled her hood over her head, and sure enough, a few minutes later, a man made his way forward from the very back car, dressed like any other traveler, but moving slowly and consulting an object in his palm that looked like a phone but was not.

  “Don’t flee,” whispered Scythe Possuelo to Citra. “Give him no control of the situation.”

  The device began to click like a Geiger counter as the man reached them, and he stopped, his quarry found.

  “Citra Terranova?” he said.

  Citra calmly removed her hood. Her heart was pounding but she didn’t let that show. “Congratulations,” she said, “you found me. Gold star for you.”

  He was thrown off by the expression, but that didn’t stop him. “I am taking you into custody.” He pulled out a jolt baton. “Do not try to resist; it will only make it worse for you.”

  Now Scythe Possuelo turned to him. “On whose authority do you do this?”

  “On the joint authority of Lautaro, High Blade of the Chilargentine Region, and High Blade Xenocrates of MidMerica.”

  “Neither of which have any jurisdiction here.”

  He chuckled. “Excuse me, but—”

  “No, excuse me,” said Possuelo, with just the right level of indignation. “We crossed into Amazonia at least five minutes ago. If you attempt to press your advantage in any way, she has every right to defend herself with lethalish force—even against a scythe.”

  Citra took that as a cue to pull out a hunting knife she was concealing in her frock, and she stood to face him. “Make one move with that baton and they’ll have to reattach your hand.”

  Behind him a porter came into the train car to see what the commotion was. “Sir,” said Citra, “this man is a Chilargentine scythe, but isn’t wearing his ring or robe. Isn’t that against the law in Amazonia?” Never had Citra been so happy to have studied her scythe history.

  The porter looked the man over, and his eyes narrowed to a suspicious glare—suspicious enough for Citra to know where his allegiances lay.

  “Furthermore, all foreign scythes must register before crossing our border,” he said. “Even when sneaking in by tunnel.”

  The Chilargentine scythe’s temper quickly began to boil. “Leave me to my business or I will glean you where you stand.”

  “No, you won’t,” said Scythe Possuelo with such matter-of-fact calm, it made Citra grin. “I’ve granted him immunity. You can’t glean him.”

  “What?”

  Then the Amazonian scythe reached his hand right up to the porter’s face, who grabbed it and kissed his ring. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  “This man threatened violence against me,” Citra told the porter. “I demand he be put off the train at the next stop, along with any other disguised scythes he’s traveling with.”

  “That would be my pleasure,” said the porter.

  “You can’t do that!” the scythe insisted.

  But a few minutes later, he found out otherwise.

  • • •

  With her pursuers kicked off the train, Citra enjoyed a respite from the relentless cat-and-mouse game. Her cover blown, she pulled on street clothes that fit her from someone’s luggage. Jeans and a flowery blouse that wasn’t her style, but the clothes were adequate. The Tonists were disappointed, yet didn’t seem all that surprised that she wasn’t actually one of them. They left her with a pamphlet she promised she’d read, but suspected she wouldn’t.

  “Whatever your destination,” Scythe Possuelo told her, “you’ll have to change trains at Amazonas Central Station. I suggest you meander through several different outbound trains before boarding the one you’re actually taking, so that the DNA detectors will send those chasing you every which way.”

  Of course, the more she wandered the station, the more likely she’d be seen, but it was worth the risk to confound the DNA detectors and send her pursuers on a wild goose chase.

  “I don’t know why they’re after you,” Scythe Possuelo said as the train pulled into the station, “but if your issues resolve and you do get your ring, you should come back to Amazonia. The rain forest stretches across the whole continent, as it did in its most ancient days, and we live in its canopy. You would find it marvelous.”

  “I thought you didn’t like foreign scythes,” she told him with a smirk.

  “There is a difference between those we invite, and those who intrude,” he told her.

  Citra did her best to leave DNA traces on half a dozen trains before slipping onto the one bound for Caracas, on the north Amazonia coast. If there were agents out there looking for her, she didn’t spot them, but she wouldn’t be so cavalier as to think she was out of harm’s way.

  From the city of Caracas, Scythe Curie had instructed her to follow the northern coastline east until coming to a town called Playa Pintada. She would have to avoid publicars or any other mode of transportation that would pinpoint her location, but she found the closer she got, the more her resolve hardened. She would get there and complete this troubled pilgrimage, even if she had to walk the rest of the way.

  • • •

  How does one face a murderer? Not a socially sanctioned killer, but an actual murderer. An individual who, without the blessing of society, or even its permission, permanently ends a human life?

  Citra knew that in the world at large, the Thunderhead prevented such things. Certainly people get pushed in front of trains, or under trucks, or off rooftops in the heat of frustrated moments—but that which is broken is always repaired. Amends are made. An ordained scythe, however, who lives outside of the Thunderhead’s jurisdiction, has no such protection. To be revived is not automatic for a scythe; it must be requested. But who is there to advocate for a scythe felled by foul play?

  Which means that although scythes may be the most powerful humans on Earth, they are also the most vulnerable.

  Today, Citra vowed to be an advocate for the dead. She would deliver justice for her fallen mentor. Clearly, the Thunderhead would not stand in her way—it had given her the murderer’s name. So had Scythe Curie when she had sent her on this mission. The final phase of her training. Everything rested on the actions she would take today.

  • • •

  Playa Pintada. The painted beach. Today the coastline was strewn with large chunks of twisted, gnarled driftwood. In the dwindling sunset, they seemed like the arms and legs of terrible creatures slowly heaving themselves out of the sand.

  Citra crouched beh
ind a driftwood dragon, hiding within its shadow. A storm was moving in from the north, building over the sea and rolling inexorably toward shore. Distant lightning could already be seen playing deep within its darkness, and thunder rolled in counterpoint to the crashing surf.

  She had only a handful of the weapons she had started with: a pistol, a switchblade, the hunting knife. The rest had been too hard to conceal, and so she had to cast them off before boarding the train in Buenos Aires. It was barely a day ago, yet it felt like a week.

  The home she watched was a single-story box of a dwelling, like many of the homes on the beach. Most of it was hidden behind palms and blooming birds of paradise. There was a back patio that overlooked the beach on the other side of a low hedge. Lights were on inside. A shadow periodically moved behind the curtains.

  Citra reviewed her options. Were she already a scythe, she would glean him, following Scythe Curie’s methods. A blade through the heart. Quick and decisive. This was one instance where she didn’t doubt her ability to do it. But she wasn’t a scythe.

  Any lethal attack would merely render him deadish, and an ambudrone would arrive within minutes to take him to be revived. What she needed to do was incapacitate him. Take him down but not out, and then extract a confession. Was he working for another scythe or acting alone? Was he bribed like the witnesses? Was he motivated by a promise of immunity, or was it a personal vendetta against Faraday? Then, once she knew the truth, she could bring the man, and the confession, to Scythe Possuelo, or anyone in the Amazonia Scythedom. That way not even Xenocrates could squelch the truth. It would clear her of any wrongdoing, and the true culprit would receive whatever punishment awaits a scythe-killer. Perhaps Citra could stay here in Amazonia then, and never have to face the awful prospect of Winter Conclave.

  At the last traces of twilight, she heard a sliding glass door whoosh open, and she peered over the rough edge of the driftwood to see him come onto the patio to look out at the approaching storm. He was perfectly silhouetted against the light inside, like a paper target at a shooting range. He couldn’t have made it easier for her. She pulled out her pistol. At first she leveled it right at his heart—force of habit from her training. Then she lowered it to his knee and fired.