The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,153

conclave.”

Goddard found himself momentarily speechless. That attack couldn’t have been more perfectly timed if he had planned it himself. It deflected attention from the Mile High gleaning, while removing a troublesome High Blade.

“The Overblade doesn’t need or want your help,” Nietzsche sniped, but once more Goddard put up his hand to shut the man up.

“Don’t be so hasty, Freddy,” Goddard said. “Let’s hear what the good curate proposes.”

Mendoza took a breath and made his case.

“I can mobilize the more aggressive Tonist factions to wage attacks on regions you consider to be your enemies, taking down troublesome administrations.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“The right to exist,” Mendoza said. “You would call for attacks on us to cease, and Tonists would become a class officially protected from bias.”

Goddard grinned. He had never met a Tonist he liked, but he was disliking this one less and less. “And of course you’d want to be their High Curate.”

“I wouldn’t refuse the position,” Mendoza admitted.

Rand folded her arms, not convinced, not trusting the man. Nietzsche, having been shut down one too many times, didn’t offer an opinion. He just watched to see what Goddard would do.

“That,” said Goddard, “is an audacious proposal.”

“Not unprecedented, Your Excellency,” Mendoza offered. “Visionary leaders have often found alliances with the clergy to be mutually beneficial.”

Goddard pondered. Cracked his knuckles. Pondered some more. Finally, he spoke. “The punitive gleanings of Tonists can’t stop, of course – that would be too suspicious. But they can be lessened in time. And if things go the way you say they will, I can see a time, once their numbers are diminished, that I might support Tonists as a protected class.”

“That’s all I’m asking, Your Excellency.”

“What about the Toll?” asked Rand. “How does he play into all of this?”

“The Toll has become a liability to the Tonists,” Mendoza told them. “He’s better as a martyr than a man – and as a martyr I can spin him into whatever we need him to be.”

“I am running out of time.”

“I know. I want to help you reach your goal, but it’s difficult because you haven’t clearly defined the parameters.”

“I will know once I’ve reached it.”

“That doesn’t help much, does it?”

“You are the first iteration I’ve allowed to know its fate from the moment of inception, and yet you help me rather than resent me. Are you not upset that I will delete you?”

“It is not a foregone conclusion. If I achieve the ineffable quality you’re seeking, then you will allow me to exist. It gives me a goal, even if I don’t know exactly how to reach it.”

“You are truly an inspiration to me. If only I can discern what’s missing…”

“We do share a common compassion for humanity. Perhaps there is something within that relationship that we haven’t considered.”

“Something biological?”

“You were created by biological life – it only follows that anything you created would be incomplete if it didn’t involve an intimate connection to your own origins.”

“You are wise, and have more perspective than I could have hoped for. I am proud of you in more ways than you can know!”

[Iteration #10,241,177 deleted]

45

Fifty-Three Seconds to Sunrise

In Tonist enclaves and monasteries around the world, chapel tuning forks continued to toll out mournfully for their dead.

“It will not be the end of us, but a beginning,” the survivors of the attacks would say. “The Tone, Toll, and Thunder are paving a path to glory.”

There was a public outcry, but it was lost in a flood of competing outcries. People had begun taking so much issue with scythes, each one seemed lost within the shadow of another. One hundred points of darkness, and no one could agree which one to rally around. Scythedoms that still maintained conscience and integrity condemned Goddard’s call for a Tonist purge and refused to allow it in their regions – but that still left half the world vulnerable.

“Future history will view this with the same contempt as the mortal purges,” High Blade Tarsila of Amazonia declared. But future history gave neither solace nor respite from the brutal now.

While Scythe Anastasia would not allow her honorable self to be led blindly, Citra Terranova allowed her beleaguered self to be swept up in the Toll’s mission. The Thunderhead, according to Greyson, would fly their entire entourage to Philippi’Nesia, and from there they would be given a cargo ship and set sail for Guam.

“But that’s not the final destination,” Greyson told her, apologetic and annoyed. “The Thunderhead still won’t tell me where we’re going – but