The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,124

said Astrid, with a grin. “Don’t you hear it singing in the hum of the engines?”

There was, at the very least, a sense that they were soaring toward not just a destination, but a destiny.

“I am Curate Mendoza, humble servant to His Sonority, the Toll, who you now see before you, the Tone made flesh. All rejoice!”

“All rejoice!” echoed Astrid and Morrison. Greyson knew it would have been a more impressive chorus if the Toll’s entourage had been larger.

Their jet had dropped down from the sky and landed with impressive gravity in front of the Ogbunike Caves, in what was once eastern Nigeria but was now just a part of the SubSaharan region. The caves and the surrounding forest were maintained by the Thunderhead as a curated wilderness, everything within it protected. Everything, that is, except for the Sibilants hiding in the twisting passageways of the mysterious caves. It was once said that the stones in the Ogbunike Caves talked. An odd choice for a sect of Tonists who were mute.

When Greyson and his team arrived, the Sibilants were nowhere to be seen; they were hiding deep in the caves – and probably went deeper the moment they heard the roar of the aircraft. But the Thunderhead smoked them out, so to speak, by emitting a sonar tone that disoriented the many thousands of bats also living in the cave, making them go … well … batshit. Attacked by the peeved bats, the Tonists were chased out, where they were faced, not by a phalanx of BladeGuards, as they had expected, but by four figures, one of whom was dressed in rich violet under a flowing scapular down which sound waves spilled like a waterfall. Between the jet on their doorstep and the somber figure in holy attire, it was hard not to pay attention.

“Where is your curate?” Mendoza asked.

The Tonists stood there in defiance. The Toll was dead. The Toll was a martyr. How dare this imposter taint the Toll’s memory. It was always this way with Sibilants.

“It will be better for you if you honor the Toll, and bring your leader forth,” Mendoza said.

Still nothing. So Greyson quietly asked the Thunderhead for just a little more assistance, and the Thunderhead was happy to oblige, speaking gently in Greyson’s ear.

Greyson moved toward one of the Tonists. She was a small woman who seemed half-starved, and he wondered if starvation was part of this sibilant sect’s behavior. Her defiance wavered as he approached. She was afraid of him. Good, he thought. After what these people had done, she should be.

He leaned close to her, and she stiffened. Then he whispered into her ear, “Your brother did it. Everyone thinks it was you, but it was your brother.”

Greyson had no idea what it was that her brother had done. But the Thunderhead did and told Greyson just enough to bring about the desired reaction. The woman’s eyes widened. Her lips began to quiver. She let off the slightest squeak of surprise. She was now speechless in more ways than one.

“Now go bring me your curate.”

She did not resist in the slightest now. She turned and pointed to one of the others in the crowd. Greyson already knew, of course. The Thunderhead had identified him the moment they all came out of the cave – but it was important that the man be betrayed by one of his own.

Exposed, the man stepped forward. He was the epitome of a sibilant curate. Scraggly gray beard, wild eyes, scars on his arms from some sort of self-inflicted misery. Greyson would have been able to pick him out even if he hadn’t been told.

“Are you the Tonists who burned High Blade Tenkamenin, and Scythes Makeda and Baba?”

There were silent sects that used sign language to communicate, but this group had nothing but the simplest of gestures. As if communication itself was their enemy.

A single nod from the curate.

“Do you believe that I am the Toll?”

Nothing from their curate. Greyson tried again, a bit louder, speaking from deep in his diaphragm.

“I asked you a question. Do you believe I am the Toll?”

The Sibilants all turned to their curate to see what he would do.

The curate narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly. And so Greyson got to work. He turned his eyes to various members of the curate’s flock, singling them out.

“Barton Hunt,” he said. “Your mother has been sending you letters for six years, three months, and five days, but you return each one