The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,123

in holy attire, it was hard not to pay attention.

“Where is your curate?” Mendoza asked.

The Tonists stood there in defiance. The Toll was dead. The Toll was a martyr. How dare this imposter taint the Toll’s memory. It was always this way with Sibilants.

“It will be better for you if you honor the Toll, and bring your leader forth,” Mendoza said.

Still nothing. So Greyson quietly asked the Thunderhead for just a little more assistance, and the Thunderhead was happy to oblige, speaking gently in Greyson’s ear.

Greyson moved toward one of the Tonists. She was a small woman who seemed half-starved, and he wondered if starvation was part of this sibilant sect’s behavior. Her defiance wavered as he approached. She was afraid of him. Good, he thought. After what these people had done, she should be.

He leaned close to her, and she stiffened. Then he whispered into her ear, “Your brother did it. Everyone thinks it was you, but it was your brother.”

Greyson had no idea what it was that her brother had done. But the Thunderhead did and told Greyson just enough to bring about the desired reaction. The woman’s eyes widened. Her lips began to quiver. She let off the slightest squeak of surprise. She was now speechless in more ways than one.

“Now go bring me your curate.”

She did not resist in the slightest now. She turned and pointed to one of the others in the crowd. Greyson already knew, of course. The Thunderhead had identified him the moment they all came out of the cave—but it was important that the man be betrayed by one of his own.

Exposed, the man stepped forward. He was the epitome of a sibilant curate. Scraggly gray beard, wild eyes, scars on his arms from some sort of self-inflicted misery. Greyson would have been able to pick him out even if he hadn’t been told.

“Are you the Tonists who burned High Blade Tenkamenin, and Scythes Makeda and Baba?”

There were silent sects that used sign language to communicate, but this group had nothing but the simplest of gestures. As if communication itself was their enemy.

A single nod from the curate.

“Do you believe that I am the Toll?”

Nothing from their curate. Greyson tried again, a bit louder, speaking from deep in his diaphragm.

“I asked you a question. Do you believe I am the Toll?”

The Sibilants all turned to their curate to see what he would do.

The curate narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly. And so Greyson got to work. He turned his eyes to various members of the curate’s flock, singling them out.

“Barton Hunt,” he said. “Your mother has been sending you letters for six years, three months, and five days, but you return each one unopened.”

Then he turned to another.

“Aranza Monga—you once secretly told the Thunderhead that you wanted to be supplanted with the memories of your best friend, who had been gleaned. But, of course, the Thunderhead wouldn’t do such a thing.”

By the time he turned to a third, both Barton and Aranza were in tears. They fell to their knees, gripping the hem of his garment. They believed. Then, when Greyson looked around for a third, everyone braced as if about to be hit by some devastating blow.

“Zoran Sarabi…,” Greyson called out.

“UUUUH,” said the man, shaking his head. “Uuuuh-uhhh…” Then he knelt in obeisance before the Toll could even speak, terrified of what truth might be told.

Finally, Greyson turned to their curate. “And you,” he said, unable to hide his disgust. “Rupert Rosewood. You demanded that all your followers feel the pain of the muteness you forced upon them… but you never felt that pain yourself. You had your tongue removed under anesthesia, because you were too much of a coward to live by your own warped convictions.”

And although the man was horrified at being exposed, he did not yield. He only grew red with anger.

Greyson took a deep breath and dug down to find his deepest, most resonant voice. “I am the Toll, the Tone made flesh. I alone hear the Thunder! This man you call ‘curate’ is not worthy of the title. He is a traitor to all you believe in, and he has misled you. Defiled you. He is false. I am true. So tell me now: Who do you serve?”

Then he took a deep breath and said one more time with a voice that could make mountains bow, “WHO DO YOU SERVE?”

And one by one, they all knelt before the Toll, lowering their heads in supplication,