The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,139
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.
But the scythe diamonds were different. For Goddard they were symbols. Clear and unambiguous markers of his success, counterweights on a balance that would not be level until all 400,000 were in his possession.
He had close to half of them now, all given to him freely as tribute by High Blades who saw the value of allegiance and had accepted him as the way forward. The future of the global scythedom. The future of the world.
But would any more diamonds come after Anastasia’s broadcasts? Common people everywhere were openly speaking out against him, in spite of their fear of being gleaned. Regions that had allied with him were hedging and even pulling their support—as if he was nothing more than a mortal-age despot who had fallen out of favor.
Couldn’t they see that he was motivated by duty and a clear sense of destiny that he had nurtured for many, many years? He had sacrificed everything for that destiny. He had helped to murder his own parents, and everyone else, on the Mars colony—because he knew that would be nothing in the larger picture. And once ordained into the MidMerican scythedom, he had risen quickly in the ranks. People liked him. People listened to him. He had eloquently convinced the wisest of the wise to embrace the joy of gleaning. “In a perfect world, one’s job should be a perfect pleasure—even ours.”
The fact that he could convince the wise was proof that he was even wiser than them.
And now he had brought them to the brink of a better world! A world without Tonists, or genetic outliers, or lazy parasites who contributed nothing of value to society. A world where the unsightly, unseemly, and unredeemable were put down by those who knew best. Thou shalt kill! Goddard was proud of what he was and what he did. He would not allow these uprisings to derail him this close to achieving that goal. He would quash them by any means necessary. The diamonds before him were proof of what he had accomplished and what he still could. And yet the sight of them made him feel no better.
“Are you going to wallow in them?”
He turned to see Scythe Rand standing in the doorway. She sauntered to the bed and picked up a scythe diamond. She turned it in her fingers, looking into its many facets. “Are you going to roll in them like a pig in mud?”
Goddard did not have the strength to be angry with her. “I am in a dark place, Ayn,” he said. “More and more people are rallying around Scythe Anastasia and her accusations.” He reached down and rolled his hand across the diamonds on the bed, their sharp edges scraping the skin of his palm. Then he impulsively gripped a handful of them, squeezing them tightly until they drew blood.
“Why must I always be the victim? Why must people make it their mission to tear me down? Have I not honored the commandments and done all a scythe is sworn to do? Have I not been a unifier in troubled times?”
“Yes, Robert,” she agreed. “But we’re the ones who made the times troubled.”