فصل 12

Sometimes, when the weight of my job becomes overwhelming, I begin to lament all the things lost when we conquered death. I think about religion and how, once we became our own saviors, our own gods, most faiths became irrelevant. What must it have been like to believe in something greater than oneself? To accept imperfection and look to a rising vision of all we could never be? It must have been comforting. It must have been frightening. It must have lifted people from the mundane, but also justified all sorts of evil. I often wonder if the bright benefit of belief outweighed the darkness its abuse could bring.

There are the tone cults, of course, dressing in sackcloth and worshiping sonic vibrations—but like so many things in our world, they seek to imitate what once was. Their rituals are not to be taken seriously. They exist merely to make the passing time feel meaningful and profound.

Lately I’ve been preoccupied with a tone cult in my neighborhood. I went into their gathering place the other day. I was there to glean one of the cult’s congregants—a man who had not yet turned his first corner. They were intoning what they called “the resonant frequency of the universe.” One of them told me that the sound is alive and that harmonizing with it brings inner peace. I wonder, when they look at the great tuning fork that stands as the symbol of their faith, if they truly believe it to be a symbol of power or are they just joining in a communal joke?

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

12

No Room for Mediocrity

“The Scythedom is the world’s only self-governing body,” said Scythe Faraday. “While the rest of the world is under Thunderhead rule, the Scythedom is not. Which is why we hold conclaves three times a year to resolve disputes, review policy, and mourn the lives we’ve taken.” Vernal Conclave, which was to take place during the first week of May, was less than a week away. Rowan and Citra had studied enough of the structure of the Scythedom to know that all twenty-five regions of the world held their conclaves on the same day, and that there were currently three hundred twenty-one scythes in their region, which encompassed the heart of the North Merican continent.

“The MidMerican Conclave is an important one,” Scythe Faraday told them, “because we tend to set the trend for much of the world. There’s an expression, ‘As goes MidMerica, so goes the planet.’ The Grandslayer scythes of the Global Conclave always have their eyes on us.” Scythe Faraday explained that at each conclave they would be tested. “I do not know the nature of this first test, which is why you need to be as prepared as possible in all aspects of your training.” Rowan found he had a million questions about conclave, but kept them to himself. He let Citra do all the asking—mainly because the questions irritated Scythe Faraday, and he never answered them.

“You’ll find out all you need to know when you get there,” the scythe told them. “For now all your attention must be on your training and your studies.” Rowan had never been an exceptional student—but that was by design. To be either too good or too bad drew attention. As much as he hated being the lettuce, it was his comfort zone.

“If you apply yourself, I have no doubt you could be at the top of your class,” his science teacher told him after getting the highest grade on his midterm last year. He had done it just to see if he could. Now that he knew, he saw no great need to do it again. There were many reasons, not the least of which was his own ignorance about scythes in those days before his apprenticeship. He assumed that being a stellar student would make him a target. Supposedly, a friend of a friend was gleaned at eleven because he was the smartest kid in fifth grade. It was nothing more than an urban myth, but Rowan believed it just enough that it kept him from wanting to stand out. He wondered if other kids held back for fear of being gleaned.

He had little experience with being so studious. He found it exhausting, and there was more than just poison chemistry, post-mortal history, and journaling. There was metallurgy as it applies to weapons, the philosophy of mortality, the psychology of immortality, and the literature of the Scythedom, from poetry to the wisdom found in famous scythes’ journals. And of course, the mathematical statistics that Scythe Faraday relied upon so heavily.

There was no room for mediocrity, especially now with conclave coming up.

Rowan did ask him one question about conclave. “Will we be disqualified if we fail the test?” Faraday took a moment before answering. “No,” he told them, “but there is a consequence.” Although he would not tell them what that consequence was. Rowan concluded that not knowing was more terrifying than knowing.

With just a few days before conclave, he and Citra stayed up late studying in the weapons den. Rowan found himself dozing, but was quickly awakened when Citra slammed a book.

“I hate this!” she announced. “Cerberin, aconite, conium, polonium—the poisons are all running together in my head.” “That would sure make a person die faster,” Rowan said with a smirk.

She crossed her arms. “Do you know your poisons?”

“We’re only supposed to know forty by conclave,” he pointed out.

“And do you know them?”

“I will,” he told her.

“What’s the molecular formula for tetrodotoxin?”

He wanted to ignore her, but found he couldn’t back away from the challenge. Perhaps a bit of her competitive nature was rubbing off on him. “C11H17N3O6.” “Wrong!” she said, pointing a finger at him. “It’s O8, not O6. You fail!” She was trying to rile him up, so she wouldn’t be the only one riled. He wasn’t going to oblige. “Guess so,” he said, and tried to return to his studies.

“Aren’t you the least bit worried?”

He took a breath and closed his book. When Faraday first began teaching them, Rowan found the use of actual old-school books very off-putting, but over time, he’d learned there was something very satisfying to the turning of pages, and—as Citra had already discovered—the emotional catharsis of slamming a book shut.

“Of course I’m worried, but here’s the way I look at it. We know they won’t disqualify us, and we already know we can’t be gleaned, and we’ll have two more chances to make up for any screw-ups before one of us is chosen. Whatever the consequence of failing the first round of tests, if either of us fail, we’ll deal with it.” Citra slumped in her chair. “I don’t fail,” she said, but didn’t sound too convinced of it. There was this pouty look on her face that made Rowan want to smile, but he didn’t because he knew that would infuriate her. He actually liked how she would get infuriated—but they had too much work to do to indulge in emotional distraction.

Rowan put away his toxicology book and pulled out his volume on weapons identification. They were required to be able to identify thirty different weapons, how to wield them, and their detailed history. Rowan was more worried about that than the poisons. He spared a glance at Citra, who noticed the glance, so he tried not to look at her again.

Then out of nowhere she said, “I would miss you.”

He looked up, and she looked away. “How do you mean?”

“I mean that if disqualification was part of the rules, I’d miss having you around.” He considered reaching out to take her hand, which rested gently on the table. But the table was big, and her hand was too far away for it to be anything other than insanely awkward. Then again, even if they sat closer, it would be an insane thing to do.

“But it’s not part of the rules,” he said. “Which means that no matter what, you’re stuck with me for eight more months.” She grinned. “Yeah. I’m sure I’ll really be sick of you by then.”

It was the first time it occurred to Rowan that she might not hate him as much as he thought she did.