The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,31

want to answer … but it was not something he could keep from her. So he clasped her hand and said:

“You have been dead for more than three years.”

Where are you, my dear Marie? My existence has been all about silencing life, but until now I have not dared to entertain that wholly mortal-age question of what lies beyond the silence. Such elaborate ideas those mortals had! Heaven and hell – nirvana and Valhalla, reincarnations, hauntings, and so many underworlds, one would think the grave was a corridor with a million doors.

Mortals were the children of extremes. Either death was sublime, or it was unthinkable – such a mélange of hope and terror, no wonder so many mortals were driven mad.

We post-mortals lack such imagination. The living do not ponder death anymore. Or at least not until a scythe pays a visit. But once the scythe’s business is done, mourning is brief, and thoughts of what it means to “not be” disappear, vanquished by nanites that disrupt dark, unproductive thinking. As post-mortals of perpetually sound mind, we are not allowed to dwell on that which we cannot change.

But my nanites are dialed low, and therefore I do dwell. And I find myself asking again and again, where are you, my dear Marie?

—From the “postmortem” journal of

Scythe Michael Faraday,

May 18th, Year of the Raptor

10

In the Face of Light Extinguished

After the dead Nimbus agents had been placed on the pyre, Scythe Faraday lowered the torch to the kindling and set it ablaze. The fire took. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed. The smoke turned darker and darker as the dead began to burn.

Faraday turned to those assembled. Munira, Loriana, and all the former Nimbus agents. He was silent for a long moment, listening to the roar of the flames. Then he began his eulogy.

“Ages ago, birth came with a death sentence,” he began. “To be born meant that death would eventually follow. We have surpassed such primitive times, but here, in the unexamined wild, nature still retains its crushing foothold on life. It is with abiding sorrow that I declare the deadish here before us to now be dead.

“Let the grief we feel for the lost be eased by our nanites, but even more so by our memories of the lives they lived. And today, I make a promise to you that these fine men and women will not be obliterated, nor dishonored. Who they were, until the moment they crossed into the blind spot, will most certainly be preserved as memory constructs within the Thunderhead’s backbrain – and I will personally count them among my own gleaned. If and when we leave this place, I will honor them by granting immunity to their loved ones, as we scythes are charged to do.”

Scythe Faraday let his words linger for a moment, and while most of the others couldn’t bear to look, Faraday turned to gaze into the flames. He stood tearless and resolute as the bodies were consumed, a solemn witness, returning the dignity that unsanctioned death had stolen from these people.

Loriana could not bring herself to look into the fire. Instead she focused on Faraday. Many Nimbus agents approached him to thank him. It brought a few tears to her eyes, to see how they revered and respected him. It gave her hope that the scythedom could, in time, recover from the sinking of Endura. Loriana knew little of the battle between the old guard and new order. Like many, she just knew that there was trouble within their ranks, and that, as a Nimbus agent, it was none of her business. She was impressed, however, by Faraday’s eulogy, and by the way he unflinchingly looked into the flames. Although she knew that the sorrow he felt as he gazed into the fire was about more than just the dead before them.

“Were you close?” Loriana asked when the others around them had left. “To Scythe Curie, I mean.”

Scythe Faraday took a deep breath, but then coughed from the smoke, as the breeze momentarily shifted direction. “We were very old friends,” Faraday told her. “And Scythe Anastasia had been my apprentice. The world will be a much dimmer place without them.”

While Scythe Curie was legendary, Scythe Anastasia had only recently become a figure of note in the world. How she allowed people to choose the time and nature of their gleaning. How she had forced an inquest. No doubt much would be made of her in the coming years. Sometimes death