The Toll

by Neal Shusterman

  “Check and mate,” Greyson said, and gave Jeri his stupidest grin.

  * * *

  “We’re looking for a town in the Britannia region that’s farthest from the sea. That’s where we’ll find Scythe Alighieri,” Greyson told Anastasia.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” said Greyson. “Probably,” he corrected. “Maybe.”

  Anastasia considered it, but then returned her gaze to Greyson. “You said we.”

  Greyson nodded. “I’m going with you.” It was the most spontaneous decision Greyson had made in years. It felt good. More than good, it felt freeing.

  “Greyson, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Anastasia said.

  But he would not be deterred. “I’m the Toll, and the Toll goes where he pleases,” Greyson said. “Besides, I want to be there when Scythe Anastasia changes the world!”

  The Thunderhead said nothing either way. It didn’t influence him against it; it didn’t suggest that it was the right thing to do. Or perhaps it wasn’t commenting because it involved a scythe. It was only when Greyson was alone again that the Thunderhead spoke to him. It wasn’t about their destination, however. The conversation took an entirely different direction.

  “I sensed a change in your physiology as you spoke to the salvage captain,” the Thunderhead said.

  “Why is that your business?” Greyson snapped.

  “It was just an observation,” the Thunderhead said calmly.

  “With all your years of studying human nature, don’t you know when you’re intruding into my privacy?”

  “I do know,” said the Thunderhead. “And I also know when you want that privacy intruded upon.”

  As always the Thunderhead was right, and it ticked Greyson off. He wanted to talk about it. To process it. But of course there was no one he could talk to but the Thunderhead.

  “I believe she had an effect on you,” it said.

  “She? Isn’t it presumptuous of you to call Jeri ‘she’?”

  “Not at all. The sky above the cave is clear and full of stars.”

  Then the Thunderhead explained to Greyson how Jeri saw gender, a thing as varied as the wind and ephemeral as clouds.

  “That’s… poetic,” said Greyson, “but impractical.”

  “Who are we to judge such things?” the Thunderhead said. “And besides, the human heart is rarely practical.”

  “Now that sounds judgmental….”

  “Quite the opposite,” said the Thunderhead. “I long for the luxury of being impractical. It would add… texture… to my existence.”

  It was only later, after Greyson had taken his earpiece out and he was lying in bed, that it occurred to him why his conversation with Jeri Soberanis felt so inviting and unsettling at the same time.

  Hello, Greyson, Jeri had said. Nothing strange about that. Except that it echoed something deeper. They were the same words, the same tone of voice the Thunderhead had used the moment it began speaking to him again.

  “The Mars colony was reduced to a radioactive crater long before I was born—but for those of you who are pushing a hundred, you’ll probably remember the public outrage. After the moon, and then Mars, people felt that colonization was just too dangerous. People turned against the idea of off-world solutions. Or should I say were turned against it, by some very loud and opinionated news feeds—the biggest being OneGlobe Media. Ever hear of it? No? That’s because it doesn’t exist anymore. It was there for one reason and one reason only—to sway public opinion, so that the Thunderhead’s decision to stop all space colonization efforts would appear to be a response to public outcry—and not a response to repeated scythe attacks on those efforts.

  “And, to add insult to injury, one of the key scythes responsible was rapidly rising in the ranks of the MidMerican scythedom. Even the Patron Historic he had chosen was a secret snub.

  “Dr. Robert Goddard, the rocket scientist who made space flight possible.

  “But the Thunderhead wasn’t done yet. It was determined to try one final time to establish an off-world presence. Not a lunar or planetary colony, but an orbital one. Closer to home. Easier to directly oversee.

  “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what happened next.”

  39 Never Enough Mirrors

  Scythe Alighieri wasn’t a day over thirty, but it was his twenty-ninth time being there, as he set his age back often. In reality, he was pushing 260. He barely looked human anymore. Such was the result of turning so many corners. One’s skin became shiny and stretched. Underlying bone structure eroded like river stones, becoming smooth and rounded, losing definition.

  He spent a lot of his time gazing at his reflection and grooming himself. He didn’t see what others might have. Scythe Alighieri saw ageless beauty in himself. Like a statue of Adonis. Like Michelangelo’s David. There could never be enough mirrors.

  He had no contact with other scythes, never attended conclave anymore, and was not missed. No scythedom had claimed him for decades, so he didn’t show up on any High Blade’s list. He was, by and large, forgotten by the world, which was fine by him. The world had gotten too complicated for his taste. He lived the kind of isolated life that kept current events as far from his dwelling as the sea—which was as far as any could be in the Britannia region.

  He didn’t know, or care to know, that the Thunderhead had stopped speaking. And although he had heard that there was some sort of trouble on the Island of the Enduring Heart, he had no idea that it was now at the bottom of the Atlantic. That was other people’s business. Aside from occasional gleanings in and around Coventry, his business was done. He had saved the world once; now he just wanted to live out his eternity in peace.

  He had few visitors. When people showed up at his door, he usually gleaned them. A fitting fate for those who would have the audacity to bother him. Of course then he would have to go out in all sorts of weather to grant immunity to their loved ones. A nuisance, but he never shirked that responsibility—that commandment. He had shirked it once before, and it weighed on him terribly. Well, at least he lived in a place that was easy on the eye when he did have to venture forth. The lush green hills of County Warwickshire had been the inspiration for many mortal-age writers and artists. It was the birthplace of Shakespeare; it was Tolkien’s bucolic Shire. The countryside was almost as beautiful as he.

  This had been his birthplace as well, although he had, in his time, aligned with various different regional scythedoms near and far, changing whenever he had a falling out with the scythes of that region. He had little patience for fools, and eventually everyone proved themselves to be one. But now he was back in his birth region and had no desire to leave.

  The visitors who came on that cool afternoon were no more welcome than any others. But as one of them was a scythe, he couldn’t glean them, and he couldn’t turn them away. He had to be hospitable, which, for the ageless scythe, was an outrageously unpleasant thing to be.

  The scythe in turquoise took a gander at his pearl silk robe. “Scythe Alighieri?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “What do you want?”

  She was a pretty thing. It made him want to turn a quick corner, setting all the way down to her age so that he might woo her. Of course it was frowned upon for such relations between scythes, but who would know? He fancied himself quite a catch at any age.

  * * *

  Anastasia was instantly repulsed by the man but did her best to hide it. His skin looked like a plastic mask, and the shape of his face was wrong in some intangible way.

  “We need to talk with you,” she said.

  “Yes, yes, well, you’ll find it pointless,” Alighieri said.

  He left the door open without actually inviting them in. Anastasia stepped in first, followed by Greyson and Jeri. They had left the rest of their entourage down by the road, as they did not want Alighieri to feel overwhelmed. Anastasia would have preferred to come alone, but now that she saw the frightful state of the man and his filthy cottage,
she was glad she had Greyson and Jeri with her as she entered this haunted house.

  Alighieri glanced at Greyson’s tunic and scapular. “Is that what they’re wearing now?”

  “No,” Greyson said. “Just me.”

  Alighieri harrumphed in disapproval. “You have awful taste.” Then he turned to Anastasia, looking her over again in a way that made her want to smash him with a blunt object.

  “Your accent is North Merican,” he said. “How are things on that side of the pond? Is Xenocrates still blustering and bellowing in MidMerica?”

  Anastasia chose her words carefully. “He… was made the North Merican Grandslayer.”

  “Ha!” said Alighieri. “I’ll bet he was the cause of whatever trouble they’re having on Endura. Well, if you’re here seeking wisdom from a veteran scythe, you’ve come to the wrong man. I don’t have any wisdom for you. Perhaps you could consult my journals in Alexandria,” he said. “Although I’ve been remiss about submitting them….”

  Then he pointed to a desk in the corner of the clutter that was piled with dusty journals. It gave Anastasia the opening she needed.

  “Your journals,” said Anastasia. “Yes, that’s why we’re here.”

  He looked at her again, a little differently this time. Was that worry in his expression? Hard to parse any emotion from that face.

  “Am I to be disciplined for not submitting them in a timely manner?”

  “No, nothing like that,” said Anastasia. “People just want to read about the… operation you were involved with.”

  “Which operation?” Now he was definitely suspicious. She had to turn this around.

  “Don’t be so modest,” she told him. “Every scythe knows your connection to the NewHope gleaning. You’re downright legendary.”

  “Legendary?”

  “Yes—and I’m sure your journals will have their own room in the library.”

  He scowled at her. “I cannot abide sycophants,” he said. “Get out.”

  Then he sat at a vanity as if they had already gone, and began brushing his long auburn hair.

  “Let me have a try,” Jeri whispered to Anastasia, then went up behind Alighieri. “You’ve missed some tangles in the back, Your Honor. Please—allow me.”

  Alighieri looked at Jeri in the mirror. “You one of those genderless sorts?”

  “I’m fluid,” corrected Jeri. “It’s how we are in Madagascar.”

  “A Madagascan!” said Alighieri, his voice dripping with derision. “I can’t stand you people. Make up your mind and be done with it, I say.”

  Jeri didn’t react, just began to brush out the scythe’s hair.

  “How old are you, Your Honor?” Jeri asked.

  “The nerve! I should glean you for asking such a thing!”

  Anastasia took a step forward, but Jeri waved her off.

  “It’s just that I’ve never met anyone who has lived so much history,” Jeri said. “I’ve seen the world, but you’ve seen the ages!”

  Alighieri met all of their eyes in the mirror. For a man who didn’t like flattery, he was drinking it in just as thirstily as he drank in his reflection.

  Now it was Greyson’s turn. “Were you… mortal?” asked Greyson. “I’ve never met anyone who was mortal.”

  Alighieri took his time before answering. “Few have. After the mortal purges, those who were left kept to themselves.” He gently took the brush from Jeri and resumed the task himself. Anastasia wondered how many times that brush had been through the man’s hair through the years.

  “It’s not commonly known, but yes. I was born mortal,” Alighieri said. “I scarcely remember that, though. Natural death was conquered before I was old enough to know what death even was.”

  He paused, looking into the mirror again, as if he were seeing through it to that other time and place. “I met them, you know. The founding scythes. Well, not met—I saw them. Everyone did. Every man, woman, and child wanted to get a glimpse of them as they rode through town on their way to Buckingham Palace, where the king knelt before them. They didn’t glean him, of course. That came years later.” Then he laughed. “I found a pigeon feather, dyed it blue, and told my classmates it fell from Scythe Cleopatra’s robe. It didn’t even look like a peacock feather, but my classmates weren’t very bright.”

  “Your Honor,” said Anastasia. “About the NewHope gleaning…”

  “Yes, yes, it’s old news,” he said dismissively. “I didn’t journal about it at the time, of course. It was all very hush-hush. But I have since then. It’s all in these volumes.” Again he gestured to the pile on the desk.

  “What a shame that they’ll be squirreled away in Alexandria,” said Jeri. “Nothing but tourists and academics there. No one of any importance will read them.”

  His response was to look at the brush in his hands. “See how full of hair the bristles have become?” Then he handed the brush back to Jeri, who picked out the matt of hair from the bristles and began brushing the other side of Alighieri’s head.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, Scythe Alighieri…,” said Anastasia. “Isn’t it time you got the credit you deserve?”

  “Scythe Anastasia’s right,” said Greyson—who knew none of the particulars, but knew what was needed. “Everyone should know the sacrifices you made. You need to share it with the world, once and for all.”

  “Yes,” said Anastasia. “The world has forgotten you—but you can make them remember. You need a lasting legacy.”

  Scythe Alighieri took a long moment to consider that. He wasn’t entirely convinced yet … but he wan’t entirely dismissive either.

  “What I need,” he said, “is a new brush.”

  “My name is Scythe Dante Alighieri, formerly of EuroScandia, FrancoIberia, TransSiberia, and Byzantium, currently and permanently of Region Britannia, although I do not claim professional alliance there, or anywhere else.

  “I am not making this broadcast merely at the behest of Scythe Anastasia; I am here of my own accord, to set the record straight.

  “A number of years ago I participated in an organized plan to glean a substantial number of people. A mass gleaning, yes, but not just any mass gleaning. I played a key part in the destruction of the NewHope orbital colony.

  “It was my right as a scythe to do so. I proudly stand behind my actions, and have absolutely no remorse for the gleanings.

  “Nonetheless, I failed in my duties as a scythe, and that failure weighs heavily on me. As you know, it is our sworn duty to grant immunity to the families of those we glean. It is stated explicitly in our third commandment. However, due to the delicate nature of the operation, we did not follow through on that duty, and granted no such immunity.

  “I will not plead ignorance or naivete—we knew what we were doing. We were, in effect, shepherding the world, you see. Protecting it from uncertainty. If off-world colonization became a successful endeavor, there would be no need to thin the population. No need for scythes. People could, and would, live forever without fear of being gleaned. Surely you can see how unnatural it would be to exist in a world without scythes. By protecting ourselves, and our purpose, we were protecting the way things ought to be.

  “And of course we needed to make the space station’s destruction appear like an accident. What need was there to trouble common folk with the weighty decisions we scythes must make? So devoted were we to this noble cause that two scythes sacrificed themselves in the operation. Scythes Hatshepsut and Kafka took control of a shuttle, crashing it into the orbital colony in order to destroy it and glean its full population. A most noble self-gleaning. My part was to make sure that the shuttle and key trigger points in the station were loaded with sufficient explosives to ensure there would be no survivors.

  “In order to maintain the semblance of an accident, however, the scythe in charge of the operation demanded that we not grant immunity to the immediate families of the victims. Since they were colonists, he reasoned, the third commandment did not apply, as their immedia
te families were no longer immediate, save for the ones who died with them.

  “That decision to not grant immunity violated our solemn code, and thus weighs heavily on me. I therefore urge the scythedoms of the world to accept responsibility for this and rectify it by granting a full year of immunity to anyone alive who was a close relation to those we gleaned in the orbital colony. Not just this, but we must also publicly acclaim Scythes Hatshepsut and Kafka as heroes for their sacrifice.

  “I have said my peace, and have nothing more to say on the matter. Any further questions regarding the destruction of the NewHope orbital colony should be directed to Scythe Robert Goddard, who commanded the entire operation.”

  40 A Bed of Stars

  Overblade Goddard stood in his chambers, looking down at the blue satin bedcover. It was the same fabric, the same color, as his robe. And while his robe was speckled with diamonds, the bed was awash with them. Tens of thousands of them were spread across the bedspread, a galaxy of glittering stars so heavy, the mattress sagged from the weight.

  He had strewn them there as a way to raise his troubled spirits. Surely their magnificence would bring him not just comfort, but elevation. Elevation enough to rise above the attacks and accusations that were being leveled at him from every direction. The streets of Fulcrum City below were flooding with crowds chanting against Goddard and his new-order scythes It was the type of thing that had not been seen since mortal days. The Thunderhead kept people reasonably satisfied, and scythes had never abused their power to such a point that people would risk gleaning to rally against them. Until now.

  But Goddard still had his diamonds.

  He did not covet them for their value. He did not hoard them as riches. That would have been beneath a scythe such as himself. Riches were nothing, for a scythe already had everything. Any material object one could desire, scythes could simply take from whomever they pleased, whenever they pleased.