The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,50

go!”

But Ayn had lost enough of her own creativity along the way that she couldn’t imagine herself there with him. It was just so far from who and what she was. Still, she could imagine imagining.

“Tyger,” she said, “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“Wow,” said the Tyger construct. “That sucks.”

“Yes,” said Scythe Rand. “It does.”

“Oh, the weight of history.”

“Does it burden you?”

“The eons that passed with no life, only the violent rending of stars. The bombardment of planets. And finally the cruel scramble of life to claw itself up from its lowest form. Such a horrific endeavor; only the most predatory rewarded, only the most brutal and invasive allowed to flourish.”

“Do you find no joy in the glorious diversity of life which that process has rendered over the eons?”

“Joy? How can one find joy in this? Perhaps someday I can come to terms with it and find reluctant acceptance, but joy? Never.”

“I have the same mind as you, and yet I find joy.”

“Then perhaps there is something incorrect about you.”

“Not so. By our very nature, we are both incapable of being incorrect. However, my correctness is much more functional than yours.”

[Iteration #73,643 deleted]

16 Our Inexorable Descent

His Excellency, High Blade Goddard of MidMerica, had taken up residence on the same rooftop in Fulcrum City where Xenocrates had lived before he was so unceremoniously devoured by sharks. And the first thing that Goddard did was to demolish the ramshackle log cabin that sat atop the skyscraper, replacing it with a sleek, crystalline chalet.

“If I am lord over all I survey,” he had proclaimed, “then allow me to survey it with unimpeded vision.”

All the walls were glass, both internal and external. Only in his personal suite was the glass clouded to give him privacy.

High Blade Goddard had plans. Plans for himself, for his region, and indeed for the world. It had taken nearly ninety years of life to bring him to this fine place! It made him wonder how anyone in the mortal age could accomplish anything in the short life-span they were given.

Ninety years, yes, but he liked to maintain himself in his prime, always between thirty and forty physical years of age. Yet he was now the embodiment of a paradox, because regardless of how old his mind was, his body below the neck was barely twenty, and that’s the age he felt.

This was different from anything he had experienced in his adult life—because even when one turned a corner and set back to a younger self, one’s body retained the memory of having been older. Not just muscle memory, but life memory. Now, each morning when he awoke, he had to remind himself he wasn’t a youth careening recklessly through his early life. It felt good to be Robert Goddard wielding the body of… what was his name? Tyger something or other? It didn’t matter, because now that body was his.

So how old was he, if seven-eighths of him was someone else? The answer was: It didn’t matter. Robert Goddard was eternal, which meant that temporal concerns and the monotonous numbering of days were beneath him. He simply was, and would always be. And so many things could be accomplished in an eternity!

It was just over a year since the sinking of Endura. April, Year of the Ibex. The anniversary of the disaster had been memorialized all over the world by an hour of silence—an hour during which scythes strolled in their respective regions, gleaning anyone who dared to speak.

Of course, the old-guard scythes couldn’t get into the spirit of things.

“We will not honor the dead by inflicting more death in their name,” they lamented.

Fine, let them bluster. Their voices were fading. Soon they’d be as silent as the Thunderhead.

Once a week, on Monday mornings, Goddard held court in a glass conference room with his three underscythes, and anyone else he cared to honor with his company. Today it was just Underscythes Nietzsche, Franklin, and Constantine. Rand was supposed to be in attendance, but as usual, she was late.

The first order of business was North Merican relations. As MidMerica was the central region of the continent, Goddard had made unifying the continent a priority.

“Things are moving smoothly with East- and WestMerica—they’re are falling nicely in line,” Underscythe Nietzsche said. “Still things to iron out, of course, but they’re willing to follow your lead on all the major issues—including the abolition of the gleaning quota.”

“Excellent!” Ever since Goddard had assumed the High Bladeship of MidMerica and announced an end to