The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,116
again.
“We could have it traced,” suggested Scythe Makeda.
Tenkamenin’s face was serious. Not angry, but concerned. “There’s a red button on the right of the device,” he told the server. “It will put the call on speaker. Be so kind as to answer it once more and press the button.”
The servant did as he was instructed, and immediately a wordless wailing sounded from the phone’s tinny speaker. The noise was so ghostly it would have been more at home in a drafty medieval castle than the High Blade’s palace. It was insistent. Mournful. Desperate.
Tenkamenin pushed his chair back with a loud scrape, stood up, and went to the phone. He just stood there looking at it and listening to the awful sound. Then finally he disconnected the call.
“Well,” said Scythe Baba, “that was unpleasant.” He tried to make a joke of it, but Tenkamenin was not in a joking mood. He just stood there staring at the silent phone. Then he turned to Jeri.
“Captain Soberanis,” Tenkamenin said. “Where is your crew at this very moment?”
Jeri looked around, understanding no more than anyone else the pertinence of the question. “They’re either out in town or back on the ship. Why?”
“Notify them that you’ll be setting sail immediately. And that we will be coming with you.”
“We, as in…”
“As in all of us.”
Anastasia stood up. She had never seen Tenka like this. He had always been unflappable. Now he seemed deeply shaken.
“What’s going on, Your Excellency?” she asked.
“That wasn’t a random call,” he said. “I believe it was a warning, and one we should heed.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Tenkamenin said, “that was my father.”
35
Requiem in Ten Parts
i. Introitus
It begins with hushed anticipation. The conductor stands, hand poised, all eyes on the wand, as if its downstroke will bring a dark magic.
Today’s piece is an orchestral wonder. A requiem conceived of, and performed by, sibilant followers of the Tone, the Thunder, and the martyred Toll. A requiem performed in response to the Mile High gleaning an ocean away.
Can you hear it now, ringing forth in the streets of Port Remembrance? A wordless, tongueless mass of mortality in an immortal world? Sweeping strains of fire and brimstone, but mostly fire. These Sibilants are well prepared for the music they will deliver today. And for those who hear it, there will be no deliverance.
ii. Dies Irae
Fire trucks were all automated. Yet still they were designed to require a human at the wheel, for the Thunderhead had planned it that way. Of course, if the human made a wrong turn, the truck would override the human and correct the error.
The fire chief of Port Remembrance thought about that often. Before he became chief, he would intentionally make mistakes while driving his rig just to entertain himself – to see how long it took for the course correction to register, and for the truck to get itself back on track. The Thunderhead could use robots to do the job of firefighters, he supposed, but the Thunderhead had never been too keen on robots. It only used them for mindless labor that no one else wanted.
And so firefighters were still firefighters. But that didn’t mean they had much to do. Because whenever a fire started, the Thunderhead always saw it when it was little more than a spark, and was usually able to put it out. It was only on those rare occasions that it could not, that firefighters were called in … although the chief had come to believe that the Thunderhead started “safe” fires just to give them something to do.
At six thirty in the evening, an alarm went off in the firehouse. Used to be that the Thunderhead would talk to them and explain the nuances of the situation they were about to get into. Now it just sounded an alarm, programmed their GPSs, and let them figure the rest out for themselves.
Today’s alarm was strange, however. There was no destination set on their screens. The garage doors didn’t roll up. But still the alarm blared.
It was only when the door to the firehouse blew off its hinges and figures began to race in that the firefighters realized the alarm was not a fire alert – it was to warn them that they were under attack.
Tonists!
Dozens of them spilled through the door, all letting off that nasty beelike droning sound. The Tonists had weapons, and the men and women of the unit simply were not prepared for this unexpected day of wrath.