Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,52

Citra in a sort of protective stance. He felt it gallant, but Citra found it irritating.

“You’ll need to come with us.”

“Why?” asked Rowan. “What’s going on?”

“It’s not our place to say,” the second guardsman told them.

Citra pushed Rowan’s protective shoulder to the side. “We’re scythe’s apprentices,” she said, “which means the BladeGuard serves us, and not the other way around. You have no right to take us against our will.” Which was probably untrue, but it gave the guards pause.

And then came a voice from the shadows.

“I’ll handle this.”

Out of the darkness swelled a familiar figure, wholly out of place in Faraday’s neighborhood. The High Blade’s gilded robe did not shine in the dimness of the doorstep. It seemed dull, almost brown.

“Please . . . you must come with me immediately. Someone will be sent for your things.”

As Rowan was in pajamas and Citra a bathrobe, neither was too keen to obey, but they both sensed that their nightclothes were the least of their concerns.

“Where’s Scythe Faraday?” Rowan asked.

The High Blade took a deep breath in, and sighed. “He invoked the seventh commandment,” Xenocrates said. “Scythe Faraday has gleaned himself.”

• • •

High Blade Xenocrates was a bloated bundle of contradictions. He wore a robe of rich baroque brocades, yet on his feet were frayed, treadworn slippers. He lived in a simple log cabin—yet the cabin had been reassembled on the rooftop of Fulcrum City’s tallest building. His furniture was mismatched and thrift-store shabby, yet on the floor beneath them were museum-quality tapestries that could have been priceless.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” he told Rowan and Citra, who were still too shell-shocked to wrap their minds around what had happened. It was morning now, the three of them having ridden in a private hypertrain to Fulcrum City, and they were now out on a small wooden deck that overlooked a well-tended lawn that ended in a sheer ledge and a seventy-story drop. The High Blade did not want anything to obstruct his view—and anyone stupid enough to trip over the edge would deserve the time and cost of revival.

“It’s always a terrible thing when a scythe leaves us,” the High Blade lamented, “especially one as well-respected as Scythe Faraday.”

Xenocrates had a full retinue of assistants and flunkies in the outside world to help him go about his business, but here in his home, he didn’t have as much as a single servant. Yet another contradiction. He had brewed them tea, and now poured it for them, offering cream but no sugar.

Rowan sipped his, but Citra refused the slightest kindness from the man.

“He was a fine scythe and a good friend,” Xenocrates said. “He will be sorely missed.”

It was impossible to guess at Xenocrates’ sincerity. Like everything else about him, his words seemed both sincere—and not—at the same time.

He had told them the details of Scythe Faraday’s demise on the way here. At about ten fifteen the evening before, Faraday was on a local train platform. Then, as a train approached, he hurled himself in front of it. There were several witnesses—all probably relieved that the scythe had gleaned himself and not any of them.

Had it been anyone but a scythe, his broken body would have been rushed to the nearest revival center, but rules for scythes were very clear. There would be no revival.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Citra said, fighting tears with little success. “He wasn’t the kind of man who would do something like that. He took his responsibility as a scythe—and training us—very seriously. I can’t believe he would just give up like that. . . .”

Rowan held his silence on the subject, waiting for the High Blade’s response.

“Actually,” Xenocrates said, “it makes perfect sense.” He took an excruciatingly long sip of tea before he spoke again. “Traditionally, when a mentor scythe self-gleans, anyone bound to an apprenticeship is unbound.”

Citra gasped, realizing the implication.

“He did it,” said Xenocrates, “to spare one of you from having to glean the other.”

“Which means,” said Rowan, “that this is your fault.” And then he added with a little bit of derision, “Your Excellency.”

Xenocrates stiffened. “If you are referring to the decision to set the two of you in mortal competition, that was not my suggestion. I was merely carrying out the will of the Scythedom, and frankly, I find your insinuation offensive.”

“We never heard the will of the Scythedom,” Rowan reminded him, “because there was never a vote.”

Xenocrates stood, ending the conversation with, “I’m sorry for your loss.” It