فصل 11

We are not the same beings we once were.

Consider our inability to grasp literature and most entertainment from the mortal age. To us, the things that stirred mortal human emotions are incomprehensible. Only stories of love pass through our post-mortal filter, yet even then, we are baffled by the intensity of longing and loss that threatens those mortal tales of love.

We could blame it on our emo-nanites limiting our despair, but it runs far deeper than that. Mortals fantasized that love was eternal and its loss unimaginable. Now we know that neither is true. Love remained mortal, while we became eternal. Only scythes can equalize that, but everyone knows the chance of being gleaned in this, or even the next millennium is so low as to be ignored.

We are not the same beings we once were.

So then, if we are no longer human, what are we?

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

11

Indiscretions

Citra and Rowan were not always together at gleanings. Sometimes Scythe Faraday took just one of them. The worst gleaning Citra witnessed took place in early May,  just a week before Vernal Conclave—the first of three conclaves she and Rowan would attend during their apprenticeship.

Their quarry was a man who had just turned the corner and reset his age to twenty-four. He was at home having dinner with his wife and two kids, who seemed to be around Citra’s age. When Scythe Faraday announced who they had come for, the family wept, and the man slipped off into a bedroom.

Scythe Faraday had chosen a peaceful bloodletting for the man, but that was not what happened. When Citra and the scythe entered the room, he ambushed them. The man was in peak condition, and in the arrogance of his new rejuvenation, he rejected his gleaning and fought the scythe, breaking his jaw with a vicious punch. Citra came to his aid, trying some Bokator moves she had learned from Scythe Yingxing—and quickly learned that applying a martial art is much different from practice in a dojo. The man swatted her away and advanced on Faraday, who was still reeling from his injury.

Citra leaped on him again, clinging to him, for the moment giving up on anything beyond eye gouging and hair pulling. It distracted him just long enough for Scythe Faraday to pull out a hunting knife he had concealed in his robe and slit the man’s throat. He began gasping for air, his hands to his neck trying futilely to hold back the flow of blood.

And Scythe Faraday, holding a hand to his own swelling jaw, spoke to him—not with malice but with great sorrow. “Do you understand the consequences of what you’ve done?” The man could not answer. He fell to the ground quivering, gasping. Citra thought death from such a wound would be instantaneous, but apparently not. She had never seen so much blood.

“Stay here,” the scythe told her. “Look upon him kindly and be the last thing he sees.” Then he left the room. Citra knew what he was going to do. The law was very clear as to the consequences of running from or resisting one’s gleaning. She couldn’t close her eyes, because she was instructed not to, but if there was a way, she wished she could have closed her ears, because she knew what she was about to hear from the living room.

It began with pleas from the woman begging for the lives of her children, and the children sobbing in despair.

“Do not beg!” Citra heard the scythe say sharply. “Show these children more courage than your husband did.” Citra kept her gaze fixed on the dying man’s until his eyes finally emptied of life. Then she went to join Scythe Faraday, steeling herself for what was to come.

The two children were on the sofa, their sobs having degraded into tearful whimpers. The woman was on her knees whispering to them, comforting them.

“Are you quite done?” the scythe said impatiently.

At last the woman rose. Her eyes were tearful, but they no longer seemed pleading. “Do what you have to do,” she said.

“Good,” said the scythe. “I applaud your fortitude. Now, as it happens, your husband did not resist his gleaning.” Then he touched his swelling face. “However, my apprentice and I had an altercation, resulting in these wounds.” The woman just stared at him, her jaw slightly unhinged. So was Citra’s. The scythe turned to Citra and glared at her. “My apprentice shall be severely disciplined for fighting with me.” Then he turned back to the woman. “Please kneel.” The woman fell to her knees, not so much a kneel as a collapse.

Scythe Faraday held out his ring to her. “As is customary, you and your children shall receive immunity from gleaning for one year henceforth. Each of you, please kiss my ring.” The woman kissed it again, and again, and again.

• • •

The scythe said little after they left. They rode a bus, because whenever possible the scythe avoided the use of a publicar. He saw it as an extravagance.

When they got off at their stop, Citra dared to speak.

“Shall I be disciplined for breaking your jaw?” Citra knew it would be healed by morning, but the healing nanites were not spontaneous. He still looked pretty awful.

“You will speak to no one of this,” he told her sternly. “You will not even comment on it in your journal, is that clear? The man’s indiscretion shall never be known.” “Yes, Your Honor.”

She wanted to tell him how much she admired him for what he had done. Choosing compassion over obligation. There was a lesson to be learned in every gleaning, and today’s was one she would not soon forget. The sanctity of the law . . . and the wisdom to know when it must be broken.

• • •

Citra, try as she might to be a stellar apprentice, was not immune to indiscretion herself. One of Citra’s nightly chores was to bring Scythe Faraday a glass of warm milk before bed. “As in my childhood, warm milk smooths the edges of the day,” the scythe had told her. “I have, however, dispensed with the cookie that once came with it.” The thought of a scythe having milk and cookies before bed bordered on absurd to Citra. But she supposed even an agent of death would have guilty pleasures.

Quite often, however, when a gleaning had been difficult, he would fall sleep before she came into his room at the appointed time with the milk. In those cases she would drink it herself, or give it to Rowan, because Scythe Faraday made it clear that nothing in his household was ever wasted.

On the night of that awful gleaning, she lingered in his room a bit longer.

“Scythe Faraday,” she said gently. Then said it again. No response. She could tell by his breathing he was out.

There was an object on the nightstand. In fact, it was there every night.

His ring.

It caught the oblique light spilling in from the hallway. Even in the dim room it glittered.

She downed the glass of milk and set it on the nightstand, so that in the morning the scythe would see she had brought it and that it hadn’t been wasted. Then she knelt there, her eyes fixed on the ring. She wondered why he never slept with it, but felt that asking would be some sort of intrusion.

When she received hers—if she received hers—would it retain the solemn mystery that it held for her now, or would it become ordinary to her? Would she come to take it for granted?

She reached forward, then drew her hand back. Then reached forward again and gently took the ring. She turned it in her fingers so that it caught the light. The stone was big; about the size of an acorn. It was said to be a diamond, but there was a darkness in its core that made it different from a simple diamond ring. There was something in the core of that ring, but no one knew what it was. She wondered if even the scythes themselves knew. The center wasn’t exactly black—it was a deep discoloration that looked different depending on the light—the way a person’s eyes sometimes do.

Then, when she glanced at the scythe, she could see that his eyes were open and watching her.

She froze, knowing she was caught, knowing that putting the ring down now wouldn’t change that.

“Would you like to try it on?” Scythe Faraday asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have touched it .”

“You shouldn’t have, but you did.”

She wondered if he had been awake this whole time.

“Go ahead,” he told her. “Try it on. I insist.”

She was dubious, but did as she was told, because in spite of what she told him, she did want to try it on.

It felt warm on her finger. It was sized for the scythe, so it was too large for her. It was also heavier than she imagined.

“Do you worry that it will ever be stolen?” she asked.

“Not really. Anyone foolish enough to steal a scythe’s ring is quickly removed from the world, so they cease to be a problem.” The ring was getting noticeably cooler.

“It is a covetable object, though, don’t you agree?” the scythe said.

Suddenly Citra realized the ring wasn’t just cool, it was freezing. The metal, in a matter of seconds, had grown white with frost, and her finger was in such intense pain from the cold, she cried out and pulled the ring from her hand. It flew across the room.

Not only was her ring finger severely frostbitten, so were the fingers that had pulled it free. She bit back a whimper. She could now feel warmth flowing through her body as her healing nanites released morphine. She became woozy, but forced herself to stay alert.

“A security measure I installed myself,” the scythe said. “A micro-coolant chip in the setting. Let me see.” He turned on his nightstand light and grabbed her hand, looking at her ring finger. The flesh at the joint was pale blue and frozen solid. “In the Age of Mortality, you might have lost the finger, but I trust your nanites are already mending the damage.” He let go of her hand. “You’ll be fine by morning. Perhaps next time you’ll think before touching things that don’t belong to you.” He retrieved his ring, set it back on the nightstand, then handed her the empty glass. “From now on Rowan will bring me my evening milk,” he said.

Citra deflated. “I’m sorry I disappointed you, Your Honor. You’re right; I don’t deserve to bring you your milk.” He raised an eyebrow. “You misunderstand. This is not a punishment. Curiosity is human; I merely allowed you to get it out of your system. I have to say, it took you long enough.”  Then he gave her a little conspiratorial grin. “Now let’s see how long it takes Rowan to go for the ring.”