The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,37

the shimmering skyscrapers of Lenape, they had to pass the two towering Verrazzano pylons. The central portion of the bridge span, having fallen into disuse and disrepair, had come down in a storm before the Thunderhead had learned ways to temper the extremes of weather. But the monolithic arches on either side remained. The Thunderhead deemed them pleasing in their simple symmetry, and established teams to manage their upkeep. Painted a muted cerulean frost that was almost the color of a cloudy Lenape sky, the Verrazzano pylons managed that miraculous architectural feat of both blending in and standing out.

The roadway approaching the western arch had not fallen with the rest of the span, and so visitors could walk along the same fragment of road that mortal-age cars had once driven to a glorious photo spot directly beneath the arch, where one could view the great city in the distance.

Now, however, visitors were of a different sort, because the spot had taken on new meaning and a new purpose. Several months after the sinking of Endura, and the sounding of the Great Resonance, Tonists claimed the location as a relic of religious significance. They said there were many reasons, but one stood out above the others. The pylons resembled, more than anything, inverted tuning forks.

It was there, beneath the arch of the western pylon, that the mysterious figure known as the Toll held court.

* * *

“Please tell me why you wish to have an audience with the Toll,” said the Tonist curate to the artist. She was at an age no one in their right mind should allow themselves to reach. Her skin sagged off her cheekbones and had a rumpled look about it. The corners of her eyes looked like two tiny accordions that had fallen open on one side. The texture of her face was amazing. The artist had an urge to paint a portrait of her.

Everyone hoped that the Year of the Ibex would bring better things than the previous year. The artist was one of many who sought an audience with the Toll as the new year began. He was less in search of grand answers than he was in search of personal purpose. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that some mystic would erase the issues he had faced all his life—but if the Toll actually did speak to the Thunderhead, as the Tonists claimed, then it was at least worth the effort to inquire.

So what could Ezra Van Otterloo tell the old woman that would earn him a chance to speak to their holy man?

The problem, as it had always been, was his art. For as long as he could remember, he had felt an insatiable need to create something new, something never seen before. But this was a world where everything had already been seen, studied, and archived. Nowadays, most artists were satisfied painting pretty pictures or just copying the mortal masters.

“So I painted the Mona Lisa,” a girlfriend back in art school had said to him. “What’s the big deal?” Her canvas was indistinguishable from the original. Except that it wasn’t the original. Ezra couldn’t see the point—but apparently he was the only one, because the girl received an A in the class, and he got a C.

“Your turmoil hinders you,” the teacher had told him. “Find peace and you will find your way.” But all he found was futility and discontent even in his best work.

He knew that the greats suffered for their art. He tried to suffer. When he was a teenager, hearing that Van Gogh had shorn off an ear in a fit of delusional pique, he tried it himself. It stung for a few moments until his nanites deadened the pain and got to work repairing the damage. By the next morning the ear had grown back good as new.

Ezra’s older brother, who was in no way Theo van Gogh, told their parents what he had done, and they sent him off to Harsh-School—the kind of place where kids at risk of choosing an unsavory lifestyle were coached in the delights of discipline. Ezra was underwhelmed, because it turned out that Harsh-School wasn’t all that harsh.

Since no one flunked out of Harsh-School, he graduated with a “satisfactory” rating. He had asked the Thunderhead precisely what that meant.

“Satisfactory is satisfactory,” it had told him. “Not good, not bad. Acceptable.”

But as an artist, Ezra wanted to be more than just acceptable. He wanted to be exceptional. Because if he couldn’t be