The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,110

they’d save him is beyond me.”

“He’s their enemy’s enemy,” Baba said.

“The problem isn’t that he escaped – it’s what happened afterward,” Tenka told her. “Goddard ordered a mass gleaning. Beyond anything we’ve ever seen. Nearly thirty thousand souls were taken – and he’s ordered that those who escaped be hunted down along with their families. He’s invoking the third commandment.”

“As if that applies!” snapped Makeda. “When you’ve just condemned an entire stadium to death, who wouldn’t run?”

Anastasia was silent. She took it in. She tried not to respond, because it was just too big a thing to respond to. Rowan was safe. And because of it, thousands were dead. How was she supposed to feel about that?

“Your broadcast went out as it was happening – before we even heard,” Tenka said. “We thought it would overshadow you – but it was just the opposite. In light of this news, it makes everything you have to say all the more important. We want to speed up the schedule. Another broadcast tomorrow night.”

“People need to hear from you, Anastasia,” said Makeda. “You’re a voice of hope in the horror.”

“Yes, of course,” Anastasia told them. “I’ll do another broadcast as soon as possible.”

The main course came. A roast so rare it was bloody. Such things shouldn’t bother a scythe, but today they all had to look away when the server carved.

“This is Scythe Anastasia. Have you debunked me yet? Have you done what my mentor, Scythe Marie Curie, the Grand Dame of Death, would have called your due diligence? Or are you willing to accept the assertions put forth by the various scythedoms who support ‘Overblade’ Goddard’s claims to larger and larger pieces of the world? Of course they say I’m an imposter – what else can they say, if they don’t want to anger Goddard?

“Goddard – who invited tens of thousands to witness a gleaning that turned out to be their own. He claims that Scythe Lucifer sank Endura. It’s a solid fact of history now. As I was there, I can tell you this much is true: Scythe Lucifer was on Endura. The eyewitness accounts of survivors who saw him are legitimate. But did he sink Endura?

“Not a chance.

“In the coming days, I’ll offer testimony that will make it very clear what happened on Endura. And who was responsible.”

In Goddard’s glass chalet, there were surprisingly few things that could be broken. Ayn watched as Goddard tried, but they simply lived in a world where everything was too well made. She was done trying to quell his temper. His underscythes could be his wranglers now. Today it was Nietzsche. Constantine hadn’t been seen for days. Supposedly he was off meeting with representatives of the LoneStar region, trying to convince them to turn over Rowan, but they still denied that they even had him. Underscythe Franklin would have nothing to do with Goddard when he was like this. “Tell me when he’s human again,” Aretha would say, and go off to her own quarters on a floor far enough away not to hear his rampage.

His latest tantrum was brought on by Scythe Anastasia’s second message to the world.

“I want her found!” he demanded. “I want her found and gleaned.”

“She can’t be gleaned,” Underscythe Nietzsche tried to explain. “Whether you like it or not, she’s still a scythe.”

“Then we’ll find her and make her self-glean,” yelled Goddard. “I’ll make her suffering so great that she’ll end her own life to stop it.”

“Your Excellency, the suspicion that would bring upon you will not be worth the effort.”

It made Goddard throw a chair across the room. It didn’t break.

Ayn sat calmly in the conference room, watching the drama play out between them. Nietzsche kept looking to her for help, but she would not waste her breath. Goddard would be unreasonable until he wasn’t. Period. Then he would find a rational excuse for everything he had done while unhinged.

Ayn used to believe the things Goddard did were all part of a greater plan – but now she saw the truth: The plan always came after the action. He was brilliant at finding shapes in the clouds of his fury.

Such as convincing himself that the Mile High gleaning was a decisive act of wisdom. Repercussions from the mass gleaning had been immediate. Those regions that were anti-Goddard railed against him. Half a dozen regions announced that they would grant immunity to anyone who chose to leave Goddard’s dominion, and plenty of people were taking them up on the